Case Study
Janssen Colombia
Janssen is a research-based pharmaceutical company that is part of Johnson & Johnson. Janssen Colombia works on improving products and services across northern Latin America, and regularly sponsors professional development opportunities for physicians in the countries it serves.
“The pandemic changed the education landscape; we found the HMX courses as a great response to our needs.”
Domenico Ruocco
Senior Manager, Medical Affairs for Latin America North at Janssen
Why HMX for Janssen Colombia?
With the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting travel plans around the world, the medical affairs team at Janssen Colombia strove to find a high-quality alternative to the conferences and workshops that the physicians they work with—including dermatologists, gastroenterologists, and rheumatologists—would typically attend.
Though they’d occasionally hosted short virtual meetings in the past, formal online courses had not previously been a part of their educational efforts, so they began searching for options that would meet their needs. “HMX courses represented what we were looking for, and we were amazed by the quality of content, the visuals, and having [the opportunity to earn] a certificate from Harvard Medical School,” says Domenico Ruocco, Senior Manager, Medical Affairs for Latin America North at Janssen. “They blended many of the elements that our physicians were expecting from us.”
“Some dermatologists especially tell us that immunology can be very difficult, if you want to go to the cellular or molecular level,” says Marcela Hernandez, a medical science liaison at Janssen Colombia. “These courses did a great job just trying to summarize the principal concepts that you need to know, in just a video of 10 minutes or less.”
Janssen’s Approach
Domenico Ruocco
Senior Manager, Medical Affairs
Latin America North, Janssen
In June 2020, the team began offering the HMX immunology course to more than 100 physicians across Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru with a variety of specialties. “As a medical affairs department, we know every physician and their position within knowledge. By segmenting our physicians based on their profile—the knowledge gaps that physicians had and their interest in digital learning—we could validate that HMX courses were the most well-prepared content we could offer to them,” says Dr. Ruocco.
Janssen Colombia worked with the HMX team to host introductory information sessions for interested physicians with questions about course content or structure. Dr. Ruocco then provided a list of physicians to HMX for direct enrollment in the courses.
Following a successful initial course run, Janssen expanded the relationship in 2021 to include both the foundational immunology course and a more advanced HMX Pro course on novel therapies for chronic inflammation, autoimmunity, and allergy, purchasing 250 seats to offer to physicians at various levels.
During each course run, the Janssen Colombia team receives weekly emails detailing physicians’ progress in the courses, as well as information on certificates earned at the end of the courses. As Janssen’s medical science liaisons are responsible for monitoring physicians’ progress in educational activities, the reports save time and effort, and can help to spur communication about any technical issues or other reasons for falling behind.
Based on the success to date, the team is further increasing the scope of the program to other therapeutic areas, offering the HMX Pro immuno-oncology course to oncologists and hematologists.
Results and Feedback
Overall, the courses have generated much positive feedback around both the course content and structure. With busy schedules in hospitals and clinics, many physicians appreciated the asynchronous material which they could access at their convenience. “They can take time during the weekend, or as they finish their work at the hospital; they are not bound to a time zone. They can advance as they have free time,” says Dr. Ruocco.
Dr. Enrique Loayza, a dermatologist in Ecuador who took the HMX Pro course on novel therapies for chronic inflammation, felt that the consistent structure of each lesson made it easier to move through the course efficiently. “I love the organization,” he says. “We know that there will be a video, then an explanation about immunology, then a question to test the knowledge and reinforce the concepts.”
As participants’ first language is Spanish, the highly visual nature of the instruction is also an important aspect. “Even if you don’t understand the English, you can understand [the topics],” says Dr. Maria Teresa Galiano, a gastroenterologist in Colombia. “A wonderful thing is the captions, which are very important for an international student.”
Each course includes a number of videos recording real doctor-patient interactions; participants pointed to these as especially useful for applying concepts, as well as understanding how physicians in the U.S. approach patient care. “I [use] this knowledge every day in my clinical practice,” says Dr. Galiano.
Engagement with the courses has been strong, which Dr. Ruocco attributes in part to the opportunity to earn a certificate from Harvard Medical School. “We don’t use the certificate as the motivation for doctors to attend the courses,” he says. “They discover it is linked to a certificate as they go through the course, and it generates engagement from them.”