Not all Medical Insights Require a Committee

Most medical affairs teams have an insight generation program that includes collecting insight data during 1:1 KOL engagements, submitting them into a centralized system, and reviewing them as a team to identify potential impact to strategy. The medical leadership team will often review these insights to evaluate their confidence in the data collected and the impact that actions could have on patient outcomes, KOL engagement, or their medical strategy. However, not all insight requires a committee.

The best medical teams have a second process running in the background. And yes, I say a process because it is purposeful, planned, monitored, and the impact of the process is visible. This process is what we call "Insights On-Demand!"

What is Insights On-Demand?
Insights On- Demand is a data-driven and individualized process that allows you to automate putting immediately actionable insight into the hands of those that can take immediate action.

The process begins by thinking about the data sources you have available.This may include KOL profiles, social monitoring, and your CRM.Then think about the actions that individual roles may take based on data that they find in these systems.As an example, let's say you heard that one of your crucial key opinion leaders was speaking at an upcoming congress. You could have discovered this through a 1:1 conversation, social monitoring, or perhaps you got the agenda for the congress and didn't realize it until then. However, you found out there are immediate actions that you can take to ensure that the Key Opinion Leader has everything they need or maybe create an opportunity to connect live at the congress. This insight does not require a lengthy review process, followed by an analysis and then a Medical Leadership Team meeting to act on it. Instead, the MSL responsible for that KOL should be informed of this insight and reminded that they should take action.

You may be thinking, yes, of course, we do this. However, the best medical teams are doing this purposefully and consistently rather than by leaving it to chance. They follow the 3A's of Automatic Insights.

1. Align

The first "A" is to "Align." Alignment is the process of identifying the specific triggers that may be discovered and aligning on who should take what action when that trigger occurs. As an example, as a leadership team, you may say, "when a KOL mentions our product in the news, their MSL should review the finding and acknowledge the mention during the next engagement." Another example may be more immediate, "when a KOL receives recognition or an award, the MSL should email a congratulation."

2. Automate

The second "A" is to "Automate." Medical affairs teams have access to so much data between publications, congress reports, social media, news, and what is in their CRM. There is a lot to keep straight. Automating the process is vital to achieving the desired outcome consistently.

There are three levels of automation that you may want to take:

i. First is just simply setting expectations and following up. This could be a playbook that instructs the team to look at certain sources on a set schedule and take specific actions.

ii. The second is alerts. Most systems include setting up email alerts that are sent to specific people when criteria are met. In your social monitoring platform, your CRM, or with your scientific profile provider, write saved searches based on the expectations you aligned to and have it email the right person with instructions to take action.

iii. The third would be a sophisticated “next best action” tool like the one provided by IQVIA.These tools process the various data inputs and push actions through email or directly into your CRM to be acted upon. One of the top benefits of the Next Best tools is collecting feedback from the MSLs and other team members when they receive an action suggestion so you can tweak the rules.

3. Adjust

And that brings us to the last "A," which is "Adjust."

You should review the rules regularly to make sure they are impactful. If you have a Next Best tool, you will have a lot of data to review. If not, you may be collecting feedback more subjectively through conversations with your team.

You should look to see if rules are regularly dismissed and not acted on. If so, evaluate if you should change the rule or provide coaching. Leaving suggestion rules in place or alerts nobody acts on diminishes the process's value.

To align on the actions, you want your team to take based on your data. Automate through alerts or suggestions to ensure every team member is notified of opportunities to make an impact. Then review the progress regularly and adjust.

Kwello, the first KOL Social Monitoring platform built specifically for medical affairs, makes this easy with the ability to save searches and to receive personalized alerts based on what your Key Opinion Leaders and Digital Opinion Leaders are talking about online.With daily updates and AI to help automate your process, Kwello will save you time and help you find opportunities faster. To learn more about Kwello, please visit our website!