Traditional contact between physicians and pharmaceutical companies is diminishing due to increased affiliation with organized provider systems, according to a joint survey released this week from Waltham, Mass.-based Quantia and Capgemini Consulting in New York.
Nearly 60 percent of physicians surveyed were affiliated with organized provider systems. New physicians, who graduated medial school in the last 10 years, were more likely to be part of a health system, as 70 percent of new physicians alone were affiliated with organized provider systems.
About two out of five physicians affiliated with organized provider systems never see pharmaceutical representatives. Most said this lack of contact was a result of organizational policy, according to the study. Organized provider systems, which include integrated delivery networks, integrated health networks and accountable care organizations, often use centralized decision making to drive down costs and improve quality. However, 90 percent of physicians surveyed think pharmaceutical partnerships could improve the quality of healthcare.
In conjunction with these findings, Quantia and Capgemini Consulting reported an increasing number of physicians prefer to use digital media over live representatives to access pharmaceutical information, according to a 2013 study. Based on the results of these studies, Quantia and Capgemini Consulting suggested pharmaceutical companies go digital to better engage physicians in health systems.
Quantia and Capgemini Consulting collected data from nearly 3,000 physicians to identify the relationship between pharmaceutical companies and organized physicians.
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