Designing Training for the Pharmaceutical Industry

Designing training for pharmaceutical clients reminds me of teaching college freshman English – you must take complex, nuanced topics and translate them into engaging learning that is easy to understand and apply. Pharmaceutical training has a wide range of topics:

• Compliance
• Sales
• Operations
• Product

Each topic presents an opportunity to engage learners in what your company does and the products it makes that save and improve patient lives.

When designing pharmaceutical training, we keep the following three maxims in mind. These help us stay focused on the value the training brings to learners and how that training supports the patient-focused goals of the company.

1. Exact doesn’t have to be boring

When designing pharmaceutical training, you must be exact in how you phrase information to ensure it is clear and accurate. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen in many dull compliance training courses, exactness is often confused with boring. Many learning designers let the content drive the training, not the learner’s needs.

But regardless of how precise the content is, it is still measured on one thing: the performance change of the learner. Judge Learning’s pharmaceutical training focuses on the learner first. We determine how to create an interactive learning journey that leverages sound design principles while respecting the exactness required of scientific training.

2. Interactivity is your friend

Pharmaceutical training topics are complex. Therefore, it’s easy to lean on the content and use minimal interactivity (e.g., simple click and reveal or fact-based knowledge checks). Instead of a simple, basic design, try something engaging. Fill your training with interactivity to keep learners focused on the content regardless of its complexity. Some engaging options include:

• Matching
• Discussion questions
• Reflection activities
• Scavenger hunts (a fun activity in operations environments)

These all result in deeper learner engagement. Sure, they take more creativity to design, but the result is greater comprehension, engagement, and retention.

3. Keep patients at the forefront

Whether you’re learning a new manufacturing process or sales methodology, the pharmaceutical training content should center around the patient and how the learner’s actions impact their lives. For example, beginning a product training course with patient stories about how the product transformed someone’s life is an excellent way to engage your learners. I recall a training session where patient accounts were used to link the manufacturing process to patient outcomes. During the training debrief, a floor operator said, “I never thought about how my work helps change lives.”

At that moment, I realized how impactful patient stories are in reaching learners’ hearts and minds.

Designing pharmaceutical training lets Judge Learning be part of enhancing patient lives. We consider that a great opportunity and privilege.