Highlights from the #MedComms Forum, 15 July

Disrupted events: what's happening in #MedComms practice?

Many of us at Oxford PharmaGenesis enjoyed taking part in Peter Llewellyn's Network Pharma MedComms Networking virtual event. Together, we wrote some notes for internal sharing, then someone suggested that other people might want to read some of the insights from this super programme of speakers, so I'm cheekily sharing without an edit! Thanks, and apologies to Olivia McKenna, Ali Murphy, Ellie Small, Patrizia Schmid and Helen Coulson. Programme and videos freely available at: https://www.medcommsnetworking.com/forum_july2020.html.

10:00 Session 1: The medical conference is dead, long live the medical conference.

REDUX Presentation and Q&A with Len Starnes (Digital healthcare consultant)

• Doctors are welcoming virtual meetings and enjoying not away from their families.
• Attendees and organisers like the reduced costs and increased accessibility.
• Virtual conferences need to embrace social media sites, those allowing hashtags.
• Medical conferences are conservative, but some have delivered engaging virtual meeting experiences.
• The CEO of the American Society of Clinical Oncology has said they had as good a scientific programme at the 2020 annual meeting as they did in physical meetings.

11:00 Session 2: Bring on the patients!  

Panel discussion, with Chair Steven Walker (Founder of The European Health Innovation Collaborative (EuHIC) and Director, St Gilesmedical) and speakers Trishna Bharadia (Patient Advocate), Richard Stephens (Patient Advocate) and Tessa Richards (BMJ Publishing Group).

• The saying ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ holds true for the evolution of remote working during COVID-19.
• Since lockdown began submissions to the British Medical Journal have skyrocketed.
• As work from home has been a success, the office will exist in some shape or form but there’s no going back. Are these changes in favour of the patient voice?
• Increased number of webinars and accessibility makes it difficult to keep up with the flow of information. On the other hand, without the need to travel delegates can attend more events and a whole new world is being opened up for patient advocates.
• Virtual congresses can improve patient access to events, with some patients being previously prevented from attending face-to-face events due to logistics, finances, and disabilities.
• Going virtual also makes it easier for patients to maintain anonymity; however, there are other needs of patients to consider, such as some not being able to sit at a computer for 8 hours.
• Patient advocacy is a huge responsibility. The advocate needs to reach out to their entire community, and it takes energy, effort, and commitment.
• The patient voice is important and adds value and knowledge to understanding diseases, hence charging patients to attend congresses should be more openly discussed and discouraged.
• Payment to patient advocate speakers is something to be encouraged. Some patients will not accept recompense, but that does not mean they should not be offered. A donation could be made instead to a charity of their choice.
• There is a need for mentoring, learning and development programmes to support patient advocates.
• Patient involvement needs to occur during design of congresses through to the presentations, ideally a ‘co-production’. Patients should not be passive participants.

To make a great patient meeting, consider the following questions:  

• What do you want patients to be able to take away from the experience?   
• What do you want patients to be able to bring to the experience?   
• How do you make this happen?   
• When you have collected insights, what do you do with the knowledge, who do you share it with and how? Act responsibly.   

Useful links

• https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/06/05/tessa-richards-todays-rapidly-convened-virtual-events-are-pointing-the-way-to-a-greener-more-inclusive-future/
• https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m2575
• https://patientsincluded.org/conferences/
• https://eposter.posterlab.info/dia2020-PPSC/   

12:00 Session 3: Effective engagement of congress delegates in a disrupted world

Presentation and industry panel, with Sam Barnes (AXON Communications), Matthew Saunders (Tangent 90) and Nick Trout (Tangent 90).

• No two congresses are taking the same approach to virtual formats. Some are fully recorded; others provide a mix of on demand/live sessions.
• Plan early and tailor by congress to account for variation in output styles. For the medical communications sector, this may include staying in close contact with the congress and apprehending the approach they will take.
• Going digital – consider polling, Q&A session, virtual word clouds, pre-recorded sessions and include scenario planning to ensure there is back up media, speakers and other mitigations in case of internet disruption.

Interestingly, as the pandemic has continued, and congresses have been going virtual there has been a reduction in social media content. This is perhaps due to the relevance of content, reduced encouragement of social media posting or that the sessions are online people are less inclined to post about the event.

Tangent 90 communications offers two unique tools to assist delegates in the virtual congresses:

1.    Trustrack is an app that tracks every digital document distributed providing a full and localized audit trail.

• Used to enhance and capture conversations between delegates.
• Captures consent and provide access in a simpler manner.
• Integrated with a single sign on and running in real time.
• Can sync compliance to host country.

2.    Nar8r is an app that enables narration of documents such as posters or reports.

• Replicates a poster hall.
• Ability to split into different sections and zoom in for ease.
• Offers free text transcription which can be downloaded and submitted with the video for approval.

14:00 Session 4: Virtual meetings - top trends, tips and lessons learned

Presentation and industry panel, with Katherine Baria (AstraZeneca), Johanna Dixon (McCann Health Medical Communications), Ged Forshaw (APS) and Orla Weir (McCann Health Medical Communications)  

Advisory boards (JD)

• Keep sessions short – 1 or 2 hours – to ensure participants’ engagement.
• Check time zones, can run ad board in several parts or in ongoing chat formats.
• Keep the attendance small for optimal engagement.
• Important to define meeting etiquette upfront (e.g. interactions and questions, video or audio) and ensure consent is obtained for recording.
• Prepare an agenda with roles and responsibilities; use chat function, so that agencies and chairs have a way of communicating.
• Designate admin and tech support and prepare by performing include test calls.

Training (OW)  

• Define clear learning objectives and outcomes for sessions.
• Not everyone registers, some show up on the day, so ensure your tech platform can handle extra numbers (could be 20, could be 200 attendees).
• Combine of plenaries (40%, absorb learning) and breakouts (60%, apply learning).

Plenaries (OW)

• Focus on the speaker and minimize distraction by having the audience muted and videos off.
• Use multiple formats to encourage interaction.

Breakout sessions (OW)

• Audience mics and audio on.  
• Works well for smaller groups (fewer than 20 participants, ideally 10).
• Assign a facilitator per group, ideally in advance.
• Have clear goals/actions for breakout.
• Offer interactive elements and cater for different types of learners.

Broadcast (GF)

• Offer live Q&A.
• Pre-records can mitigate connection problems but provides little flexibility on the day.
• Simultaneous translation can be provided.
• Bespoke solutions – instead of using a tech platform, a microsite could be developed. Registrations and pre-reads can be facilitated through this.
• Interactivity may include live polling, surveys and poster session.
• Enduring materials such as recordings can extend meeting impact over time.

Other considerations

• Key is to assess the meeting’s objectives first and then apply the technology, not fit the meeting around the technology.
• In virtual meetings data can be digested later; people can have more time to reflect.
• Exhibitions in a virtual world are much more challenging and have not yet been as successful as virtual meetings.

Top tips

• Allow plenty of time to arrange meetings.
• Set up clear objectives but also desired outcomes from the meeting.
• Technology should accommodate a higher number of participants than expected.
• Engagement is key; plenary to impart the knowledge, breakouts for applying it.
• A good mixture of styles is very useful: debate, interview style; how to best impart the knowledge and keep interest from the audience; variety of voices; interactivity, for example through text chat, chat storm (pre-populated with answers), polls and surveys.
• Videos off and audience muted, not too many screens not to divert attention.
• A facilitator for each breakout session.
• Research the platform which you will use, each offer different features.
• Assume that multi-tasking is happening in the background; use polls to keep up the interest.
• All virtual formats can provide translation – ensure medical terms are defined with translators in pre-work.

15:00 Session 5: Face-to-face events – what might a new normal look like?

Panel discussion, with Chair Mark Handforth (3Sixty Event Consulting) and speakers Stephane Dazet (European Association for the Study of the Liver), Alex Morris (Chartered Psychologist, a Chartered Scientist and Associate Fellow with the British Psychological Society) and Andrew Winterburn (3Sixty Event Consulting).

• Face-to-face interactions are not dead as humans are wired for physical connection.
• If content is of a high level it will attract people to congresses.
• At a webinar in May, participants were asked about digital fatigue. The majority said it was not yet an issue but anticipated it would be further down the line.
• Senior clients often have back to back meetings, which can be tiring. Digital working requires additional work to try and figure out subtle nuances in language which may have previously been communicated via body language.
• Adjusting to digital will affect how we approach face-to-face meetings in future and should be accounted for in returning to the ‘new normal’. Engagement will be key.
• Successful meetings in 2021 will look very different to previous due to increased accessibility with digital congresses. We could see about 75% of delegates attending virtually and 25% present at the venue.
• In the future, in returning to the office, we need to focus on what we gain from a face-to-face meeting that we don’t get from a digital meeting. 

What have we gained and what have we lost from the enforced move to digital?

Gained

• Needed to adjust, allowed for innovation
• Pushed for creative solutions at congresses
• Congress attendance will increase, especially if free of charge

Lost

• Lack of engagement makes message delivery more difficult
• Harder to focus and keep attention
• Fewer chances to network
• Loss of business development
• Lower productivity