We’ve spent years optimising omnichannel.
Perhaps it’s time we started optimising outcomes.
On 9 June, more than 130 people from pharmaceutical companies, agencies, procurement teams and industry organisations came together at 1 Wimpole Street for the PM Society’s Pharmony Summit. The aim was simple: to ask how healthcare communications can create more value in a world becoming more complex, more connected and more technology-enabled.
The answer was not another channel.
It was better strategy, better relationships and better judgement.
Healthcare professionals are under extraordinary pressure. Sixty-nine per cent are seeing more patients than before, 28% do not believe they have enough time to provide a good standard of care, and almost 80% of approved content is rarely or never used. Against that backdrop, producing more material and celebrating higher open rates is not enough.
We work in healthcare.
That means our success should perhaps, ultimately, be judged by whether we help healthcare professionals make better decisions and help patients receive better care.
The Summit findings were blunt:
70% believe up-front strategic thinking is one of the most under-recognised sources of value.
68% say the biggest improvement would be clearer alignment at the outset on roles, expectations and measures of success.
67% place mutual trust among the most important ingredients of a successful partnership.
Yet only 16% say they currently work in a highly integrated partnership, despite 59% wanting shared accountability and joint problem-solving to become the norm.
That gap matters.
Because the best work does not come from a technical tick-box exercise.
It comes when clients and agencies invest in the relationship, share the broader context, challenge one another constructively, suspend subjective opinion and work from real insight.
Technology, AI and omnichannel all have a role.
But they are enablers, not the destination.
The destination is better thinking, stronger behaviour change, more useful communication and better outcomes for healthcare professionals and patients.
And yes, commercial value should follow.
But it must be earned.
The full Pharmony Summit Report is now available to download.
