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What are medical insights?
In our complex and ever-changing healthcare landscape, organizations rely upon medical insights to drive strategies to ensure the right treatments reach the right patients. Since MSLs have scientific expertise and meet with HCPs, they are uniquely positioned to collect and share medical insights with the organization.
Medical insights represent solicited and unsolicited feedback from HCPs, often in the form of expert opinion, which are shared with MSLs during scientific discussions and exchanges. This information should be captured, reported and used in accordance with Compliance Guidelines, SOPs and applicable policies.
Insights may be related to the clinical environment and practices, treatment paradigms and approaches, novel molecules, pipeline and clinical studies, competitive landscape, patient pathways and more.
When determining whether a piece of information could be an insight, consider:
Is this information relevant to our medical strategy?
Does this information add anything to what we already know?
Could this information change what we currently do or plan to do?
Do we need to take any action based on this information (particularly if it has been raised more than once)?
Does this information address any gaps in our knowledge on a specific topic?
Ideally, the information is specific, actionable, and contributes to your organizational knowledge and medical strategy.
An insight can be defined as a discovery that informs a medical strategy. If an insight is not actionable or helpful in making a decision, then your organization cannot use the information for the benefit of customers and patients.
Potential insights may include HCPs' perceptions of:
Issues relating to disease area and treatment paradigms
How they diagnose and treat, biases, preferred approaches, etc.
Your data
What do HCPs think of your data? Why?
Are there any data gaps?
Other data you should make available to HCPs
For example, potential phase IV or investigator-initiated studies, additional sets of existing data
Competitive products and their data
Marketed and pipeline. What do HCPs think about current and pipeline strategies? Why?
Why do insights matter?
Insights matter because they represent strategic opportunities to improve outcomes for customers, patients and your organization in the short and long term. Examples:
New indications or expansions
Ways to improve the customer or patient experience
Preparing for successful launch
Insights help with pre-call planning, enable better interactions with HCPs and greater impact for your organization. They also demonstrate the unique value of MSLs.
What are examples of actionable insights?
Insights that explain why HCPs think or act a certain way can help to determine which actions should be taken by your organization. When meeting with HCPs, make sure to collect insights relevant to your Medical Strategy. Also, make sure you understand the "why" behind your HCP's perceptions and consider using the word "because" in your insights.
Examples that are NOT insights:
Dr. X wants to participate in a clinical study
This information should be collected and shared, but is not an insight.
Dr. X asked about product A and I answered with B information.
This is only an insight if Dr. X didn’t feel the response to his or her question was satisfactory and still has concerns.
I updated Dr. X about the latest MDX study data. She is very much looking forward to MDX availability.
This provides a high-level statement about the perceptions of MDX, but is not an insight.
Dr. X is interested in being an advisor or speaker
This information should be collected and shared, but is not an insight.
Examples of effective insights:
“Dr. X would like to see our primary endpoint more clearly communicated in a clinically meaningful way, such as the mean change of LS from baseline over time. She would also like to see a comprehensive list of potential DDIs with our product because she is concerned about a potential lack of efficacy.”
“Dr. X believes a sample program would increase the access to our product. This is because samples are useful in providing a preliminary/pilot readout of efficacy and tolerability when deciding on the therapeutic utility and utilization of a new product.”
“Dr. X believes that gene- and protein-based biomarkers are necessary to identify the best patients for potential therapies, including our product. This is because of the availability of many therapies with different safety and efficacy profiles.”
These examples indicate HCPs' perceptions as well as the “why” behind the perceptions. With these insights, organizations can develop and enhance medical strategies for the benefit of customers and patients.
You can focus your insights collection activities by reviewing your organization's priorities (also known as “field medical initiatives,” “key insight topics,” “listening priorities” or “scientific imperatives”) and discussing with your manager.
For more helpful tips, see our posts How to Uncover Actionable Insights with the 5 Whys and 7 Common Mistakes MSLs Make with Medical Insights.
How can we improve our team’s insights?
Ask your team to use the CART approach so their insights are Clear, Actionable, Relevant and Timely (CART):
Is my insight clearly written? Will my manager understand the insight and its implications?
Is my insight actionable? Can it lead to a potential change in strategy or outcome?
Is my insight relevant to our medical strategy?
Is my insight timely? Is it related to our current priorities?
Ask your MSLs to communicate the “why” behind the HCP's statements and include the word “because” in their insights. This will help to ensure understanding and provide context for you.
Lastly, encourage your MSLs to read insights from their colleagues. Reading insights from other MSLs can enhance their understanding of the clinical environment, patient pathways and other considerations. Often, reading insights from colleagues (especially MSLs in other countries or regions) can lead to a deeper understanding of their HCPs' concerns and behaviors.