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Strategic Leadership, Medical Omnichannel, and AI in Medical Affairs: Highlights from the MAPS EMEA Annual Meeting
Written by Emma Winter and Hannah Tivey on Thursday, May 23, 2024
Over 400 medical affairs professionals from around the globe converged in vibrant Madrid, Spain, for the Medical Affairs Professional Society (MAPS) EMEA Annual Meeting on May 12–14, 2024. The conference highlighted the evolving role of medical affairs professionals in a rapidly changing industry, underscoring the importance of effective change management as critical to the future success of medical affairs.
Medical affairs teams urged to cultivate cross-functional collaboration and demonstrate strategic leadership
Building on the ongoing MAPS theme of strategic leadership, medical affairs professionals were once again encouraged to assume roles as strategic leaders and urged to work closely with other business functions to share learnings and implement best practices for the future. In particular, the ongoing need for close collaboration with commercial teams was highlighted across a number of sessions, emphasizing the importance of shared objectives that focus on patient outcomes.
Medical affairs teams must be able to measure and communicate value and impact
This year’s meeting theme, “From Action to Impact,” reflects the shifting expectation for medical affairs teams to move away from “vanity metrics” and towards clear articulation of their true value and impact. Many sessions highlighted the need for medical affairs teams to demonstrate the tangible impact of their activities on healthcare professional (HCP) behavior and how this ultimately leads to improved patient outcomes. The overwhelming consensus is that the goal of patient impact should be a cross-functional objective shared by all teams; however, questions remain on how to measure impact and what are the most effective metrics to demonstrate the value of medical affairs. In an OPEN Health-facilitated roundtable we addressed this topic head-on, bringing together a group of industry experts to discuss our approach to defining impact measurement frameworks, metrics selection, and the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in insight collation, data mining, and impact assessment.
Realizing the vision for medical omnichannel
Omnichannel continued to be a hot topic at this year’s MAPS EMEA meeting, with a focus on practical requirements for implementing successful medical omnichannel activities. In an OPEN Health-led session, we shared key learnings based on real-life experiences of audience segmentation and channel selection in medical omnichannel, as well as exploring the role of medical science liaisons in the wider omnichannel ecosystem. In line with the theme of the conference, discussion also focused on how to define and measure the performance and impact of omnichannel strategies. Additionally, there is a need for cross-functional alignment and agreement of shared objectives between Medical and Commercial functions to achieve a truly audience-centric approach and deliver the right information to the right stakeholder at the right time.
The time for medical affairs to embrace AI is now
It is no surprise that AI was high on the agenda, with attendees eager to explore how rapidly evolving technologies are being utilized in the pharmaceutical industry and how these will likely transform the role of medical affairs professionals. Discussions focused on real-life applications of generative AI in medical affairs, from support with administrative tasks to content generation, literature reviews, and medical information responses. The most common concerns around using AI in medical affairs were regarding data privacy, compliance, and hallucinations, but the overriding message from the experts was that the functionality, accuracy, and confidentiality of available technologies are improving. Attendees were encouraged to “test the water” by identifying use cases in which AI could help reduce the burden of mundane tasks, allowing them to focus on strategic work and developing and strengthening relationships with the HCP community and beyond.
About OPEN Health
As the role of medical affairs continues to evolve, OPEN Health can help navigate the changing landscape. Our global expertise in medical communications, patient engagement, market access, health economics and outcomes research, and creative communications provides a unique ability to partner with medical affairs functions to foster cross-functional alignment and ensure strategic and operational consistency across initiatives. Get in touch to find out how we can partner with you to unlock possibilities, shape the future of medical affairs, and deliver lasting impact.
Working in partnership with our clients, we embrace our different perspectives and strengths to deliver fresh thinking and solutions that make a difference.
Together we can unlock possibilities.
For information about OPEN Health’s services and how we could support you, please get in touch.