Medical information teams are responsible for answering incoming inquiries from healthcare providers (HCPs) concerning marketed products and, in some cases, investigational compounds. This important team also provides information to patients, caregivers and other external stakeholders. Medical Information’s core function, as we know it today, is to provide consistent and timely responses concerning the safety and risk/benefit profiles of a company’s products. Responses are informative, data-driven, targeted, and fair-balanced.

Medical information is one of the most outward-facing teams. Although sales forces and medical science liaisons interact often with physicians face to face, the volume of inquiries filtered through medical information teams and call centers can number in the tens of thousands each year. For this reason, these teams can be considered the backbone of the medical affairs department.

Medical Information may also be known by alternative names within an organization, including:

• Drug Information
• Scientific Communications
• Medical Services
• Medical Communications

Complying with Regulatory Requirements

The medical information team fulfills a regulatory requirement to provide its services to healthcare providers and other stakeholders. Medical information teams comply with regulations by providing a central hub of scientific knowledge that curates information about their companies’ products. That information – often presented in the form of clinical data – may be developed internally or by external sources. The incoming inquiries that drug companies respond to may be about marketed or investigational products. It’s important to remember that the information team’s regulatory requirements cover a specific set of activities:

• Maintain documentation of who is making the inquiry, his or her contact information, as well as the subject and purpose of the information request.
• Provide both written and verbal responses to incoming inquiries.
• Provide standard response documents to frequently asked questions to address these inquiries with consistent responses.
• Provide responses to nonstandard questions once the medical information team has thoroughly researched existing data and completed relevant literature searches.
• Maintain current knowledge on the latest medical literature about the company’s products.

Responding to Unsolicited Requests

The medical information team’s primary responsibility is to respond to unsolicited medical requests from healthcare providers and other customers. These responses come in the form of standard response documents (SRDs). The process for developing standard response documents requires cross-functional reviews to ensure that the data communicated back to the HCP is accurate and does not violate any compliance rules.

Once the SRDs are finalized, the in-house medical information team and the call center coordinate to track all inquiries and responses for auditing purposes.

It’s important for medical teams to keep track of their communications with HCPs. Part of the standard pharmacovigilance processes requires an audit trail to ensure companies monitor, track and communicate adverse events to the appropriate regulatory agencies within the timeframe outlined by applicable regulations.

Medical Information Call Centers

You can’t talk about the medical information role without discussing call centers. In many ways, the medical information call center is the hub of activity for this important function. Often, the call center staff are the first point of contact that HCPs have with a pharmaceutical company. Most companies staff an in-house medical information call center. But outsourced call centers are also common.

Life sciences companies staff their medical information teams with knowledgeable professionals who can aid both internal and external stakeholders. These professionals are often pharmacists, nurses or other individuals with medical backgrounds. Call centers require highly educated employees who are well-trained to communicate scientific information, address product concerns, navigate internal databases and provide high-quality customer service.

Providing Cross-Functional Support

Even as medical information teams serve physicians, pharmacists and allied health professionals, they also serve other internal functions. The medical team is more than a call center relying on a database of standardized responses to frequently asked questions. Medical information has several key responsibilities. Like other sub-functions of medical affairs, medical information specialists are highly integrated throughout all levels of the company. Medical information works with pharmacovigilance, clinical research, and MSLs within medical affairs; and they may work cross-functionally with regulatory affairs, sales, marketing, market access, and publication teams. In fact, their support of other internal groups helps raise the medical affairs department’s overall profile within the company.

Medical information teams often take on a central role in pharmaceutical and device manufacturers’ medical communication strategies. As a repository for all product information and clinical data, the medical information team is an extremely valuable resource for those colleagues who know how to leverage the team’s expertise. For example, medical science liaisons can work with medical information to communicate new data analysis to the medical community.

Beyond serving as a resource for other medical affairs functions, the typical medical information team member has high experience and education that companies leverage in other ways. For example, medical information teams have the potential to contribute to all medical writing. As it stands, medical information teams are responsible for writing standard response documents used to answer medical inquiries. Most companies also ask medical information representatives to take part in a copy review committee for promotional materials. But forward-thinking companies leverage their medical information capabilities and ask staff to help write product dossiers, sales force material, MSL collateral and even physician education materials.

Next-Generation Medical Information Teams

The interaction that an HCP or patient has with a company’s medical affairs team may be the extent of their communication with the company. Medical information teams should approach their interactions with their stakeholders as such and, therefore, recognize there is a customer service component to their operations.

For decades, medical information teams have been structured around the call center, which leads to common call center issues. Stakeholders may have to wait in a queue prior to speaking to a live individual. They may have to speak to multiple individuals before receiving any responses to their inquiries. They may have to repeat their inquiries to each person they speak with rather than having a more seamless transition in the conversation.

The traditional medical information call center structure has met the function’s utilitarian and regulatory needs. Next-generation medical information teams, however, need to incorporate multiple communication channels with seamless integration to provide a high-quality, end-to-end customer experience. Additionally, medical information teams should ensure they’re not treating every incoming inquiry the same way. For example, medical information teams should prioritize inquiries about adverse events differently compared to frequently asked questions about a drug’s interaction with other commonly prescribed medications.

Medical information teams have the opportunity to serve as the authoritative center of knowledge about their companies’ products. The general trend within the medical community is that healthcare providers prefer to get their information from medical affairs professionals. Medical information teams should act on this trend and position themselves as owners of these interactions to provide stakeholders with an exceptional experience. Otherwise, HCPs and patients may go elsewhere to get answers to their product questions.

Read about how you can become a Medical Science Liaison team leader