Barbara Blasso
President
IMsci (International Meetings & Science), A division of ghg
Personalizing Physician Education
As the founder of ghg’s medical educational unit, International Meetings and Science, Inc. (IMsci), Barbara Blasso has created and executed medical communications programs supporting the successful launch and uptake of some of the world’s best-known global brands.
Barbara believes the greatest revolution in health education is in providing the opportunity to reach and target thousands of physicians at once through the online channel. As a result, IMsci has made tremendous strides in revolutionizing clients’ educational offerings via digital platforms that are integrated seamlessly into the context of the HCP’s daily workflow. And she has identified two principles for helping clients allocate their digital resources wisely.
1. Go where your doctors go: This principle reflects a customer-centric philosophy and emphasizes the need to be where customers already are rather than trying to persuade them to visit owned or sponsored properties. A few key areas of physician workflow that provide opportunities for engagement include daily review of medical news and clinical data; clinical practice point-of-care patient consultation; EHR documentation, ePrescribing; and at medical congresses.
2. Deliver relevant information in the context of daily workflow: Another mission for Barbara is to help physicians deal with the Health Information Avalanche. For instance, the growth of EHR requires that physicians be on top of the latest treatment guidelines. This can be overwhelming for physicians, who are very much like consumers. Physicians require very specific messages, but it’s necessary to use different techniques to reach them.
One such way IMSci helps clients achieve this is through ghg’s partner, MedPage Today, a leading online news service where physicians learn about breaking medical news and stay up to date on medical congresses. While the service is known for supplying brief content for physicians who don’t have the time to read in-depth journal articles, Barbara wanted to offer them something else. For those who need to go deeper, Barbara worked with Medpage Today to create a new service, MedForum, which provides physicians with the contextual information beneath the headlines and provides clients the exclusive opportunity to create custom, sponsored educational centers in any therapeutic category.
