Systems and processes for KOL insight generation typically include submitting free-text insights into an email or through your CRM system. Commonly these insights are pulled monthly or quarterly in preparation for a review meeting where they are summarized. This means that the analysis of these insights can be 30-90 days after the insight is first heard, preventing immediate action, and leading to large numbers of insights that need to be reviewed at any time. In today’s rapidly changing environment, this is just too long.
There are three ways that you can accelerate the submission-review cycle.
1. Targeted Insight Surveys – In addition to unstructured insights, you can also deploy your MSLs to gather information about specific areas of interest. Leveraging a survey tool in your CRM, you can ask MSLs to collect specific information from a set of KOLs. As the surveys are completed, it is important to have on-demand reporting to see the progress that is being made, how answers are trending, and make adjustments as needed.
2. Social-Based Insight Tools – Your MSL team can take advantage of tools based on social technology to begin assessing insights the moment they are submitted. These tools allow the entire medical affairs team immediate visibility to all insights. When the insight appears on the activity wall, members of the community can vote up or down on their perceived impact of the insight, as well as identify if they have seen or heard the same insight. By leveraging the power of the team, the medical leaders can quickly see the topics that are tending highest in votes.
3. CRM Reporting – If your team is focused on leveraging your CRM for collecting insights, ensure you have adequate on-demand reporting. As a leader, you should be able to see insights submitted at least daily.
Insight generation is a primary source of value of medical affairs and your MSL team. By implementing some simple processes and tools you can improve the number, quality, and speed of the insights you provide to the organization.