If I had a dollar for everytime I heard Medical Affairs leaders say they wish MSL insights were better, I would be a rich lady. Getting decision-grade insights is a challenge for many Medical Affairs teams. We need to keep in mind that MSLs are asked to do a lot, making it challenging for them to focus on gathering great insights. How can we help MSLs gather better insights?

→ Check out this video for a quick refresher on insights.

→ And the Definitive Guide to MSL Insights

Ralph Rewers, the Yoda of Medical Affairs, has a great hack to help MSLs gather better insights. Another huge benefit of this approach is that it makes your insights data much cleaner and easier to analyze. 

How to Help MSLs Gather Better Insights: Give Them Key Questions

When it comes to helping MSLs gather better insights, Ralph emphasizes the need for extremely clear communication of the medical strategy.  MSLs need to know a lot before even interacting with stakeholders. Then when meeting with HCPs, there is even more going on. It is hard to also think about gathering insights when on the hot seat with an HCP. Ralph suggests using key questions to help MSLs know what to focus on when meeting with HCPs. 

What Are Key Questions for MSLs?

Every medical strategy will have some assumptions that MSL insights can help confirm, change, or update. Key questions are questions designed to test medical strategy assumptions and are developed by the Medical leadership team. 

Key questions help MSLs know what to prioritize. Ralph points out that different teams have different names for key questions:

• Key insights questions (KIQs)
• Key insights topics (KITs)
• Listening priorities

How to Communicate Key Questions to MSLs?

Once the key questions are developed, MSLs need to know about them. Ralph recommends loading survey questions into your CRM (customer relationship management) tool. This way MSLs can review the questions when out in the field and easily enter the responses after meeting with HCPs.  Another bonus of a survey approach is that it makes analysis easier. When insights are easier to analyze at headquarters, they are more likely to be used to inform strategy. 

One last important point: communicate what is being done with insights back to the field team. Help them understand how impactful their work is. 

Conclusion: Key Questions Can Help MSLs Gather Better Insights

We live in a busy busy world with gigabytes of info being thrown at MSLs all the time. Help them know what to prioritize with key questions. It helps communicate the medical strategy and the business’s strategic priorities.  Plus this helps the business get insights that are actionable and help make better decisions. 

Are you an MSL that works for a company that uses this approach? What are your thoughts?

Are you a Medical Affairs leader using this approach? Please also share your thoughts!