OBJECTIVES: Everything we see and read implies that we are well into a digital era, with the “pad and pen era” a distant memory. The growth of webinars, blogs, podcasts and chat boxes gives us opportunities to train, learn and communicate at any time, wherever we are. HEOR/market access has traditionally been slow to adopt, as templates and methodologies appear to give less opportunity for digital experimentation. As we look to communicate effectively with internal teams and more widely with international payer audiences, we need to consider the impact of digital adoption and degree of transformation. We therefore conducted an additional study following our previous investigations in 2021 to further evaluate changing digital needs and expectations.

METHODS: A survey involving 20 Pharmaceutical professionals working in HEOR/market access roles across Europe and the US was conducted in June 2023.

RESULTS: The results demonstrate that there is an appetite for a wide variety of digital methods to create and communicate HEOR/market access work. Of the digital media tested, the greatest future interest is shown in webinars and virtual workshops, with >65% of respondents favouring them. In terms of formats for presenting detail, videos and infographics are liked by >60% of respondents. There is more uncertainty about newer tools such as artificial intelligence-assisted systematic literature reviews and augmented reality, where >70% are unsure of the application of these to their work. When asked for reasons, the greatest barriers to digital transformation are currently lack of technical know-how (>20%) and budget constraints (>35%).

CONCLUSIONS: The study demonstrated that there is increasing acceptance of a range of digitally enhanced communication methods. HEOR/market access professionals see a growing value of using various media for communication with their internal and external payer audiences. With seemingly advancing technical knowledge among the audiences, it is likely this digital transformation is well under way.