One of the biggest challenges that medical science liaisons (MSLs) have is recognizing what insights are. There is a lot of pressure to get out there and gather insights. But because of the confusing nature of insights, oftentimes what MSLs capture is not useful to the company and cannot be acted on. From the MSL perspective, it’s not clear why they are not useful. Sometimes it helps to look at negative examples. Keep reading for examples of what MSL insights are not.

Why MSL Insights are Tricky

MSL insights are tricky because they depend on the company strategy and current trends in the healthcare landscape. This means that an insight that medical leadership loves one day may not be an insight on another day.

Additionally there are varying definitions and the term insights is used interchangeably with data/information. It’s confusing. But it is a hard concept to wrap your head around, especially if people are all willy nilly about how the word “insights” is used. Check out this video for more tips on what an insight is.

Examples Of What MSL Insights Are Not

From a medical leadership and analysis perspective here are some common issues with insights:

• Relevancy to the current business objectives
• It’s not timely
• The why or implications are missing

“Met with Dr. Smith and shared disease state education slides.”

“Dr. Smith likes the new slide deck.”

“The HCP doesn’t like the formatting of the table.”

These examples are not insights because they do not contain the why or implications and they are hard to take action on. Think of this from the perspective of someone trying to analyze insights from a team of MSLs. If the disease state education slides were shared, so what? What is supposed to be done with this information? The HCP likes the slide deck. That’s great but so what?

You are probably noticing a theme here: the why is missing in the examples of what insights are not. Leverage your active listening and soft skills to develop the relationship and uncover the why!

Conclusions

Understanding what insights are takes practice and patience. Get familiar with what your company’s business objectives are (this will help you know what to prioritize) and the why to make the information more actionable.

What has helped you learn what makes an insight good or not?