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Blog: Moving to Self-Service: A Key Component of an Effective Automated Content Management Strategy for Medical Information Managers

On June 18th, 2019, ArisGlobal presented the webinar “Effective Automated Content Management Strategies for Today’s Successful Medical Information Managers.” In this final blog of our two-part series, we share how the move to self-service is creating a clear paradigm shift  and impacting  the content management strategy of today’s MI departments.

By 2020, 67% of physicians will be digital natives and will prefer obtaining medical information on specific medications through digital channels, and by 2025, 75% of our global workforce will be accomplished by millennials who are extremely comfortable with digital technology[1].

With billions of mobile health app downloads (source: Statista 2019) as an indicator, today’s patients are also now more digitally empowered than ever before, with access to healthcare information just a few keystrokes and clicks away. Patients now expect immediate responses to their healthcare concerns. Additionally, the emergence of patient support groups and new stakeholders, such as “patient opinion leaders” and “digital opinion leaders” blogging on healthcare issues, add to the complexity facing medical information (MI) departments.

This reality impacts both the rise in call volumes that MI departments are experiencing as well as the public’s move toward self-service. ArisGlobal  believes that pharma companies need to proactively develop and launch self-service engagement strategies and capabilities that allow:

    • HCPs and patients to easily search via mobile apps or online desktop,
    • The ability to submit inquiries if appropriate content is not found
    • Provide an auto-response mechanism through chat bots for on-label requests

Artificial intelligence is becoming mainstream and will enable MI systems to deliver capabilities. Leveraging AI, medical information is broken down into manageable components based on patient information and FAQs. User-entered text/questions are parsed, and keywords are identified. Based on the questions, AI will select and present the most appropriate responses. If a response is not found or the user is not satisfied with the response, the user can then chat live or submit an inquiry.

We admit then to being surprised by our webinar attendees’ response when asked whether their company currently delivers such self-service content access. Sixty-two percent replied “no.” The 23.1% who are planning a self-service portal and the combined 15.4% who either have a full-service portal or publish all documents on their website are ahead of the curve on this front.

 

Do you currently provide self-service content to HCPs and Sales representatives/MSLs?

NONO, BUT WE ARE PLANNING TO DEVELOP A SELF SERVICE PORTALYES, ALL THE DOCUMENTS ARE PUBLISHED ON THE WEBSITEYES, WE USE A SELF SERVICE PORTAL

Developing an effective, long-term content strategy and the components necessary  – one that factors into account the paradigm shift toward self-service – is covered in more detail in the webinar, now available on-demand. We also invite you to read our article “The Role of Artificial Intelligence Within Pharmacovigilance and Medical Information” to learn more.