What is Medical Communications?

The team at CTC is often asked, “what is medical communications?” Medical communications is an important part of the complex landscape of healthcare, though it is often one that is misunderstood. Medical communications is at the heart of what we do - so we’re happy to answer this question for those just diving into the industry or for experts who need a resource to share with others.

What is medical communications?

Medical communications is a field of work focused on the creation and exchange of medical information, specifically to healthcare professionals, pharmaceutical companies, researchers, and others, about medical treatments, drugs, devices or programs. The reason why we specialize in medical communications is to help create compelling medical content for medical and healthcare organizations to share with their customers and colleagues.

About the medical communications industry

The medical communications industry has a number of players - most notably pharmaceutical companies, healthcare organizations, healthcare professionals and medical communications agencies. As part of the industry, these players come together to share information about medical treatments, drugs, devices or programs through a variety of services like symposiums, courses, advisory boards and more. The medical communications industry plays an important role in healthcare - ensuring the transparent and accurate sharing of medical information to the physicians and healthcare providers who keep Canada healthy and well. 

What do medical communications agencies do?

Medical communications agencies provide services to help pharmaceutical and biotech companies communicate to healthcare providers. These medical communications services include:

• Needs assessments, where we gain insights into the unmet educational needs of healthcare professionals
• Advisory boards, which provide valuable knowledge to healthcare professionals and organizations
• Continuing medical education, where we apply adult learning techniques to help medical professionals stay on top of the latest evidence-based medicine
• Consensus initiatives, which gather together leaders in the industry to discuss complex healthcare topics 
• Post-congress updates, which ensure that any knowledge gained at conferences is delivered to healthcare professionals 
• Scientific publications, where we publish innovative medical knowledge for healthcare professionals and organizations 
• And so, so much more

The best medical communication agencies help alleviate the pressure on organizations to deliver medical education, making it easy through the development of customized, compelling communications strategies. For example, an organization needed medical communications support to help doctors make informed decisions about cannabis. An innovative process was used to gather data and develop educational initiatives that provided physicians with recommendations on cannabis use.

What kinds of medical communications are there?

The term ‘medical communications’ is an umbrella that encompasses many different capabilities, however there is a focus on three important functional areas: 

• Medical education: The creating and sharing of educational materials and programs that help organizations and physicians make informed medical decisions. This might include a symposium or patient education.
• Medical affairs: The act of creating a bridge between healthcare or pharmaceutical organizations and others in the healthcare community, like physicians. This might include advisory boards or scientific publications.
• Commercial: Commercial services include the marketing or promotion of pharmaceutical and medical products, treatment, drugs or programs. This might include assessing the need for these offerings or custom digital solutions.

Medical communications play an important role in healthcare, one that CTC is proud to fill. If you’d like to learn more about medical communications, or would like to talk to CTC about how we can help you with your next project, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us for a free quote, or sign up for our newsletter so we can keep you up-to-date on industry news, our offerings and much more. Just for doing so, we’ll plant 10 trees on your behalf as part of our environmental protection efforts.