Not All Medical Insights Require a Committee

Most Medical Affairs teams run an insight generation program: collecting insight data during 1:1 KOL engagements, submitting it into a centralized system, and reviewing it as a team to identify potential impact on strategy. The medical leadership team then reviews these medical insights to evaluate their confidence in the data collected and the impact that actions could have on patient outcomes, KOL engagement, or medical strategy. That committee review matters. But not all insight requires a committee.

The best medical teams run a second process in the background. And yes, a process, because it is purposeful, planned, monitored, and its impact is visible. That process is what we call Insights On-Demand.

Key Takeaways

Not every insight needs a committee review. Time-sensitive, individually actionable insights should go straight to the person who can act on them.
Insights On-Demand is a deliberate, monitored process, not something left to chance.
The framework has three parts: Align on triggers and owners, Automate the routing, and Adjust the rules over time.
Automation runs on three levels: documented expectations, saved-search alerts, and next-best-action recommendation tools.
On average, a KOL takes three to four actions after an MSL interaction, so getting the right insight to the right MSL quickly is what turns data into practice change (ZS, 2024).

What is Insights On-Demand?

Insights On-Demand is a data-driven, individualized process that routes an immediately actionable insight to the specific person who can act on it, without sending it through a full committee review first.

The process begins with the data sources you already have. That may include KOL profiles, social monitoring, and your CRM. Then think about the actions individual roles can take based on what they find in those systems.

As an example, say you heard that one of your crucial key opinion leaders is speaking at an upcoming congress. You could have discovered this in a 1:1 conversation, through social monitoring, or from the congress agenda. Either way, there are immediate actions you can take to make sure the KOL has everything they need, or to create an opportunity to connect live at the congress. That insight does not require a lengthy review, an analysis, and then a Medical Leadership Team meeting before anyone acts. Instead, the MSL responsible for that KOL should be informed of the insight and reminded to act on it.

You may be thinking: of course, we already do this. The difference is that the best medical teams do it purposefully and consistently rather than leaving it to chance. They follow the 3 A's of automatic insights: Align, Automate, and Adjust.

How do the 3 A's of automatic insights work?

Align

The first A is Align. Alignment is the process of identifying the specific triggers that may surface and agreeing on who takes what action when each trigger occurs. As a leadership team, you might decide, "when a KOL mentions our product in the news, their MSL should review the finding and acknowledge the mention during the next engagement." Another might be more immediate: "when a KOL receives recognition or an award, the MSL should email a congratulations."

Automate

The second A is Automate. Medical Affairs teams have access to enormous amounts of data across publications, congress reports, social media, news, and the CRM. There is a lot to keep straight, and automating the routing is what makes the desired action happen consistently. It is also where teams are investing: 46% of Medical Affairs organizations have implemented a centralized data, analytics, and insights hub for field medical (ZS, 2024).

There are three levels of automation to consider:

Expectations and follow-up. The simplest level is a playbook that instructs the team to review specific sources on a set schedule and take specific actions.
Alerts. Most systems can send email alerts to specific people when criteria are met. In your social monitoring platform, your CRM, or with your scientific profile provider, build saved searches based on the triggers you aligned on, and have the system email the right person with instructions to act.
Next-best-action tools. The most sophisticated level is a next-best-action recommendation engine that processes multiple data inputs and pushes actions through email or directly into the CRM. A key benefit of these tools is that they collect feedback from MSLs and other team members when an action is suggested, so you can refine the rules. Generative AI is accelerating this level in particular; 36% of Medical Affairs organizations now use generative AI for insight generation and analytics (ZS, 2024). For more on where AI fits, see how Medical Affairs teams can use generative AI.

Adjust

The third A is Adjust. Review the rules regularly to make sure they stay impactful. If you have a next-best-action tool, you will have a lot of feedback data to review. If not, you may be gathering that feedback more subjectively through conversations with your team.

Look for rules that are regularly dismissed and not acted on. When you find one, decide whether to change the rule or provide coaching. Leaving suggestion rules or alerts in place that nobody acts on diminishes the value of the whole process.

In short: Align on the actions you want your team to take based on your data, Automate the routing through alerts or suggestions so every team member is notified of opportunities to make an impact, then review progress regularly and Adjust. Getting the right insight to the right MSL quickly is what turns collected data into action; on average, a KOL takes three to four actions after an MSL interaction (ZS, 2024).

A KOL social monitoring platform built for Medical Affairs, such as Kwello, supports the Automate step by letting teams save searches and receive personalized alerts based on what their key opinion leaders and digital opinion leaders are discussing online, with daily updates.

Want to talk through this with our team? We're here to help.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Insights On-Demand in Medical Affairs? Insights On-Demand is a data-driven, individualized process that routes an immediately actionable insight to the specific person who can act on it, without first sending it through a full committee review. It runs alongside the traditional insight generation program, not instead of it.

Do all medical insights need a committee review? No. Strategic insights that affect medical strategy or carry uncertainty benefit from committee review. Time-sensitive, individually actionable insights, such as a KOL speaking at an upcoming congress, should go directly to the MSL who owns that relationship so they can act quickly.

What are the 3 A's of automatic insights? The 3 A's are Align, Automate, and Adjust. Align means agreeing on which triggers matter and who acts on each. Automate means routing those triggers to the right person through playbooks, alerts, or next-best-action tools. Adjust means reviewing the rules regularly and changing or coaching around the ones that are ignored.

What are the levels of automation for medical insights? There are three: documented expectations and follow-up (a playbook and schedule), saved-search alerts that email the right person when criteria are met, and next-best-action recommendation tools that process multiple data sources and push actions into the CRM while collecting MSL feedback.

How does a KOL social monitoring platform support Insights On-Demand? A KOL social monitoring platform built for Medical Affairs supports the Automate step by letting teams save searches and receive personalized alerts about what their KOLs and digital opinion leaders are discussing online, so the responsible MSL is notified when an actionable trigger occurs.