Market access: Communicating the story effectively
pharmafile | February 15, 2012 | Feature | Medical Communications |
By Andy Buckland – Principal Medical Writer at Abacus International
Successful market access relies on a multitude of activities throughout the life cycle of a healthcare intervention. Whatever the activity, however, clear and effective communication through the written word is crucial. Let’s take health technology assessment (HTA) as an example, and look at three key issues that need to be considered for effective communication:
One size doesn’t fit all
In many markets, HTA is a critical market access barrier, not only at the point of product launch, but also for many years afterwards, as HTA bodies review their own decisions and as products acquire new or expanded indications.
These bodies systematically assess the evidence available to support the benefits a healthcare intervention can provide to the patient, and whether this is at a justifiable financial cost.
Across the UK and Ireland alone, a company may have to submit written evidence to four separate organisations: in England, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence or NICE, is a familiar name appearing in news headlines regularly, but similar organisations also exist in Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland.
Each body has their own set of guidance for the specific evidence they require and the way in which this should be presented. The challenge for writers comes in needing to understand the different rules and styles that HTA bodies “like”, and then tailoring the written submission to each organisation accordingly. The idea that a single template-like approach will work for all, with the odd tweak here and there, is wide of the mark.
Delivering technical language, simply
The HTA document, often a hundred or more pages long, is a challenging piece of technical writing, not least because it has to be aimed at a broad audience. The people tasked by an HTA body with assessing a submission may come from various roles or backgrounds: doctors, nurses, NHS managers, health economists and statisticians, as well as members of the public, may be involved. Importantly, they will most often not be expert in the specific clinical area being considered. This means that the submission has to deliver technical elements that hold up to academic scrutiny, yet be easy to understand and accessible.
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What does it all mean?
Cost-effective: When the cost of an intervention is considered to be justified given the benefit it provides
QALY: A measure of treatment benefit combining the impact on both life expectancy and quality of life
Utility: Typically used to refer to a measure of quality of life on a scale of zero (death) and 1 (perfect health)
EQ-5D: A standardised instrument for measuring health outcomes, the results of which are used to determine utility scores
Markov model: A widely used type of economic model, used to calculate if an intervention is cost-effective
CEAC: A graphical method to demonstrate the probability that an intervention is cost-effectiveness and illustrate the uncertainty surrounding the result
Bayesian statistics: A form of statistics used, for example, to estimate the benefit of one intervention over another
WinBUGS: Specialist software used for Bayesian analysis
…and the list goes on!
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Consider health economic modelling, whereby the product is judged on whether it is a cost-effective use of healthcare budgets – this is a crucial part of the decision-making process for HTA bodies in markets such as the UK. Health economics carries a technical language all of its own – with a bewildering array of acronyms and terminology – and can appear totally inaccessible to the uninitiated. Developing an understanding of a technical field like this is key to confident writing and good communication. As a writer, working alongside other technical teams such as health economists, has an important part to play in developing this understanding.
Fitting the pieces of the jigsaw together
Developing the evidence platform for an HTA submission can be a complex and time-consuming process, pulling together various elements from a number of specialist areas. Alongside health economics, systematic reviews of the literature will identify relevant clinical, health economic and humanistic evidence; statistical analyses, such as network meta-analysis, allow deeper interrogation of the evidence; and project management will develop a strategy to tackle the various challenges of the HTA process itself.
The challenge for a writer, therefore, comes in being able to understand and interpret all of the evidence, and then piece it all together into a concise, effective technical communication.
With so many disparate elements it can be very easy for a submission to become disjointed and inconsistent, particularly if a writer does not have direct access to one or more of the specialist providers of the evidence. In today’s challenging financial environment, working with an experienced agency that can provide technical teams working side-by-side to pull all of these pieces together successfully, has never been more important.
Andy Buckland is Principal Medical Writer at Abacus International and can be contacted at: andy.buckland.mc@abacusint.com or find further infomation here
