The Digital Ready MSL: Key Skills to Master

ChatGPT reached 100 million monthly active users about two months after launch, faster than TikTok (nine months) or Instagram (two and a half years), according to TIME's reporting on Similarweb and UBS data. Medical Affairs has adopted new technology more slowly, but Scott Thompson reports that more than three quarters of the Medical Affairs teams he works with now have an omnichannel plan in place and have started deploying it.

In this Acceleration Point webinar, Scott Thompson (CEO, Acceleration Point) outlines four skills MSLs can start practicing today without any new technology: trigger-based engagement, multi-channel curation, sequence thinking, and question expertise. A digital-ready MSL is a Medical Science Liaison who has built these working habits before new tools are deployed, so the tools are useful from the first day. For each skill, Scott Thompson also previews the tools in development, including Next Best Action platforms, modular content hubs, and large language models such as ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot. For a written summary of the framework, read Four Key Skills for the Modern MSL. If new tools are on your team's roadmap, this session shows you what to practice first.

What You'll Learn

• Trigger-based engagement means responding to system-generated alerts, such as a new publication, an upcoming Congress presentation, or a KOL joining a new institution. MSLs should decide ahead of time whether each alert is high, medium, or low priority and what action it prompts.
• MSLs can practice trigger-based engagement now by setting up alerts in PubMed, Google Alerts, KOL profile tools, and social platforms, then tracking which alerts led to action and which were ignored.
• Next Best Action programs work best when teams start with agreed rules, then use AI or machine learning to suggest missing rules for the team to review. Scott Thompson notes that when teams skip the rules-based phase, the team doesn't understand the system and doesn't necessarily trust it.
• Sequence thinking replaces one-off events with connected touchpoints. For a medical education program, a sequence might run from a knowledge gap documented in CRM, to an approved email, to a registration notice sent to the MSL, to follow-up based on attendance and post-program survey results.
• A multi-channel curator helps HCPs find the most credible and relevant sources among information they can already access. The role depends on current CRM data and modular content, because, in Scott Thompson's words, "you can't curate when your source is 250 slides long."
• Question expertise is the shift "from knowing the right answer to being an expert at asking the right question." Well-placed questions prompt active recall, and research on retrieval-based learning shows that repeatedly recalling material improves long-term retention more than spending the same time restudying it (Karpicke, 2017).

About Our Speaker

Scott Thompson is CEO at Acceleration Point. Scott Thompson has spent more than 15 years working with Medical Affairs and Medical Excellence teams on how to maximize and communicate their impact. His recent work centers on digital adoption in Field Medical, including leading digital opinion leader advisory boards with HCPs who are active in the social space.

Connect with Scott on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/medical-excellence/

FAQ

What is a digital-ready MSL? A digital-ready MSL is a Medical Science Liaison who has practiced the skills digital tools depend on before those tools are deployed. In the Acceleration Point webinar The Digital Ready MSL, Scott Thompson identifies four of these skills: trigger-based engagement, multi-channel curation, sequence thinking, and question expertise.

What is trigger-based engagement for MSLs? Trigger-based engagement is a way of working in which MSLs respond to alerts about HCP activity, such as a new publication, an upcoming Congress presentation, or a move to a new institution. Scott Thompson recommends that MSLs set each alert's priority and planned action in advance, because most MSLs only have capacity to act on a limited number of alerts each day.

What is sequence thinking in Field Medical? Sequence thinking is planning scientific engagement as a series of connected touchpoints toward one goal, rather than as a single event. MSLs can start today by drafting two to four follow-up communications for common situations and saving them as templates in tools such as Outlook or Word.

Should a Next Best Action program start with rules or with AI? Scott Thompson recommends starting with rules the team already understands, because rules are faster and less expensive to implement and help teams get used to responding to prompts. In a second phase, AI or machine learning can suggest missing rules, which the team reviews before any suggestions go directly to MSLs.

Why is asking questions a core digital skill for MSLs? HCPs can now find much of the information MSLs once provided on their own, and AI tools return better results when users ask specific, well-framed questions. Scott Thompson describes questions as the MSL's primary tool for driving active recall during an engagement, and says asking better questions is the most important skill for MSLs to practice next. Better questions also make field insights more useful. McKinsey reports that typical medical-affairs organizations systematically analyze less than 1 percent of field interaction notes (McKinsey, 2024).

Curious how this applies to your organization? Let's talk.

About Acceleration Point Webinars

Acceleration Point webinars bring Medical Affairs and Field Medical leaders together to share practical insights, emerging strategies, and real-world perspectives on the challenges shaping the industry. Each session is designed to support the professionals driving scientific exchange, field medical excellence, and Medical Affairs transformation.

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