Do you know how to get the best out of medical communications and medical education specifically? To us it means building, communicating and optimising your brand vision to reach all of your customers - be they internal personnel, healthcare professionals (clinicians, nurses, pharmacists, etc.), purchasers, patients or consumers.

Our medical education programmes encompass strategic communication planning, data publication and presentation at meetings, management of opinion leaders, and training and educational materials for specific drugs or therapy areas.

In the right hands, medical education provides a robust vehicle to deliver an integrated communications programme that is creative and insightful. Such a programme can also feed other elements of the mix (such as advertising and PR), maximise communication opportunities and provide an excellent return on investment.

Medical education the Ogilvy 4D way. At Ogilvy 4D we deliver medical education programmes using three guiding tenets from our research into models of behaviour change.

Evidence: what data are available? Evidence management includes an understanding that data are the cornerstone to all programmes driving publications, communication and beliefs. Coupled to this is an understanding of the current knowledge gaps for which evidence is needed. These gaps can be eliminated through strategic publication planning and a structured publication process that adheres to good publication practice.

Endorsement: who will support me? Endorsement requires excellent relationships with your opinion leaders. This is underpinned by stakeholder mapping - investment in understanding who are your opinion leaders and what makes them 'tick'. From this, the motivation, drive and needs of individual opinion leaders can be gauged. Through meetings, advisory boards and symposia, and indirectly via publications, these individuals can provide effective peer endorsement that encourages others to change behaviour.

Infrastructure: what is in place to help behaviour change? Providing an environment where changes in behaviour can be implemented effectively is important to ensure successful change. This means identifying and overcoming barriers to changing behaviour. These can often be overcome by providing training on skill sets, clinical and non-clinical, depending on the environmental factors facing the adoption and usage of each product.

Remember, at Ogilvy 4D we are aiming to change behaviour for the better. If you want to find out more about this approach, please call or email.