Planning & Preparation for Successful Detailing Visits Kayland Arrington, MPH| Program Manager National Resource Center for Academic Detailing Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics Brigham and Women’s Hospital Harvard Medical School 1

“Face Time” must be leveraged The Life of a Detailer: “Face Time” must be leveraged by other activities

1:1 Visits are Successful When You’re:

Presentation Predicaments Preparation: Proper Preparation Prevents Presentation Predicaments Prepare your key messages, features, benefits in advance. Know your content & materials inside and out. Achieve fluidity from materials to discussion through scripting and practice.

Efficiency: Focus on high impact visits—do your research Clinic research: Patient panels, # of clinicians, etc. Introductory visit vs. follow-up visit How much time will you need? Time Management: Accomplish your goals in allotted time Plan day to maximize number of quality encounters

Effectiveness: Remember why you’re there! To ignite the desire for change To promote action To build a relationship over time

Assess: Are You On Target? Is your messaging effective? Are your messages being well-received and understood? How do you know? If not, what do you do? Is the clinician absorbing the information you’re presenting? Does he or she seem committed to taking action on your program’s overall goal? You need to be self-critical about the ways in which you’re delivering your message. You may think you’re being effective, but you need to check. You need to figure out what communication strategies are working well, and what ones aren’t, and discover the whys and why-nots. So, in any situation, what are some ways you can figure out if you’re being effective when you’re talking to someone? [After someone responds, say, “And that’s what you can do and plan to do it at particular points along the way.”]

Pivoting: Revise your messaging & actions: You should always be assessing needs—yours, and the clinician’s! Continue to gauge your effectiveness throughout the visit. Always be aware of resources and time, and stick to the timeframe you agreed to. Once you figure out what’s working and what’s not, you’ll want to reassess. You want to look at measures of effectiveness: Am I actually accomplishing what I’m here to accomplish? Do I need to make changes in my approach?

Prepare for Obstacles: What might a front-line clinician say? Object to? What’s your plan if the conversation changes direction? What will do you? Have you practiced enough to go “off-script”? Practice, Practice, Practice!

Ways to Practice: Write it out! Practice in front of a mirror. Audio record yourself saying your introduction or closing. Try it out on a friend who doesn’t know the project and ask for feedback. Practice with another teammate via phone, Skype, or in person. Review our toolkit for detailing videos, tip sheets, and scripting tools! NaRCAD

Script It! The more you plan & know your role, the easier it is to go “off-script”: This is meant to be a general plan, not a literal script.

Remember the Structure of a Visit: