Undoubtedly one of the biggest value creators for Medical Affairs teams is insights. They help understand HCPs and the therapeutic area to guide decision-making. But they are also hard to do right! MSLs and Medical Affairs teams struggle to show their impact with insights generation. One common myth about medical insights is that they are these huge Nobel prize-level revelations that completely change entire strategies in a single stroke. This does occasionally happen but it’s not the norm. Insights are often more nuanced and help shape strategy at the micro-level. 

The Truth about Medical Insights

Impactful insights that confirm, inform, or change the medical strategy typically are small, seemingly insignificant details that must be combined with other insights and data sources. It’s important to understand that it’s unlikely that an MSL will interact with a single HCP and leave that interaction with a strategy changing insight.

It’s the cumulative work of MSLs that lead to insights. It’s the patterns across their territory or HCP type that when combined with insights from other regions and other data sources lead to a more comprehensive picture. It’s often about the finer details in HCP, payer, and patient behavior that help Medical leadership form the strategy. These finer details lead to incremental changes that over time add up to impact strategy and guide decision-making.

How MSLs can Avoid this Myth about Medical Insights

The key for MSLs to gather great insights is to understand that typically they are not one piece of groundbreaking information. They tend to be more cumulative. With this in mind, think broadly across the territory and types of patterns that may be surfacing among HCP type, institution type, etc.

Talk to other MSLs in other territories. Are they seeing the same patterns? This could indicate a larger trend. Does your team have regular insights meetings? If yes, pay attention to what is happening in other territories. If not, consider starting one up.

Conclusion

The power of medical insights are often subtle and cumulative. When MSLs realize this, they can train their brains to look for larger patterns in their territory. It’s the incremental improvements of insights that ultimately shape the medical strategy.

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