Supporting congress with global scientific exchange

GOALS

A medical affairs team at a leading pharma company wanted to enhance its virtual congress huddle experience for HCPs. Objectives included:

1. Provide an opportunity to engage in real-time discussion on scientific disclosures presented during the congress
2. Be inclusive to markets in which congress attendance or participation can be more challenging, including India and China
3. Be perceived as providing credible peer-to-peer activities for participating HCPs
4. Encourage local affiliate countries to invite their HCPs and adopt this innovative digital approach

SOLUTION

The client worked with the Within3 client success team to review the previous year’s congress huddle activities and determine a plan for the current year. Within3 suggested the following approach:

1. Recruit digitally motivated key opinion leaders to provide an incentive for HCPs to join the discussion group voluntarily
2. Ensure the insights management platform was easy to understand and navigate for all participants, regardless of language preference
3. Create and share an orientation video to explain the huddle and its value to the participants

Within3’s client success team also took steps to meet the client’s goal of being inclusive to all participating markets. To overcome questions about access issues for HCPs in China, Within3 suggested setting up a test room on the Connect platform to determine that participants in China could sign in and participate in the asynchronous session. In addition, a live briefing was offered in Chinese.

The client success team provided thorough training to the client team’s moderators, with suggestions on how to engage with and respond to participants. Within3 also provided best practices for the client team to encourage deeper insights, including capturing results from each day’s discussion and asking follow-up questions.

RESULTS

The consultative partnership between the medical affairs team and Within3’s client success team was productive, with quantitative and qualitative results that demonstrated a clear progression beyond the previous year’s congress huddle:

1. 95% of invited participants took part in the congress huddle – all voluntary, non-compensated
2. More than 70% of invited participants based in China contributed to the huddle
3. Post-event surveys showed that HCPs rated the scientific exchange in the asynchronous session as more credible than in other live virtual sessions
4. The client team was nominated for an internal digital innovation award based on the results of the asynchronous session