Rob: Over the years, the role of publication and medical communication professionals has expanded well beyond getting research published in peer-reviewed journals. Today, we're creating all kinds of resources designed to help healthcare professionals understand and apply the latest evidence. But are we creating the resources that field medical teams actually need?
This is In Plain Cite, a podcast exploring the biggest questions and trends facing medical publication and communication professionals. I'm your host, Rob Matheis, President and CEO of ISMPP.
Today, we're joined by Sarah Snyder, Co-CEO of MSL Mastery. Together, we'll explore what field medical teams really need from publication professionals, how today's MSL role is evolving, and what makes a resource practical, accessible, and valuable in the limited time they have with healthcare professionals.
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Rob: I'm really excited to have you on the show today because I really wanna get into the, the nitty-gritty or the heart of what actual tools are being used in the field. Because we dream up lots of stuff, and we think that you need all these things out there in the field medical community, but maybe you don't.
So maybe we'll just start by level setting. It would be helpful during this conversation for you to highlight those areas or, you know, the characteristics of the field medical role, so our audience has a better sense, like, what's it like?
Sarah: I love that question because your job is so difficult because the field role is so different from role to role. So if you think of a large pharma company, the role is pretty much gonna be a little bit more consistent. You're gonna be going out and seeing HCPs, sometimes community HCPs, sometimes academic KOLs, but you're typically gonna have a 15-minute meeting with those individuals. The important part of what I just said is the 15 minute. That's the average time that a field medical person is getting with their audience of HCPs right now, whether it's an individual, even a group setting. So just keep that in mind, too. We used to have the luxury of 45-minute meetings, but that's just gotten crunched down.
And then I also wanna emphasize that if we look at the smaller companies or even the mid-size, it's a little bit more varied. The field medical professional might be traveling and seeing advocacy professionals and managed care professionals, and HCPs, and doing a whole host of things in addition to clinical trial, uh, sites. They're wearing a lot of hats, and sometimes that means that if there's so many resources, that they don't know where to go to get to what.
It ... You know, if you put yourself in somebody out in the field's shoes, they're doing something a little bit each day differently, and they're not as home office based, so they're not using these all the time, so that mind switching of going back and forth and the knowing where to find w- what isn't as obvious as you would think when you're creating the, the tool, the various things that you're doing and how easy it is to forget the resources that you have. It's a very diverse role, and always changing.
Rob: It sounds that way, and wow, 15 minutes, that is not a lot of time.
Sarah: No.
Rob: So, you know, l- let's say you take a, a brand-new publication just comes out. It's hot off the press, and you're about to go visit with a healthcare practitioner. What do you wanna take in that office with you for that 15 minutes?
Sarah: So it used to be that you would definitely wanna take a slide deck with, you know, six, seven slides that you could go over that publication with that provider. I think that number has dropped in half as far as less slides, less talking, and more listening to them to get the insights back. “Insights” is, it is a buzzword right now in industry, but it's a buzzword for a reason because it's so important for field medical to show their value, and the number one currency for field medical is insights bringing back in.
So when you think about the resources that you're creating, we really want to have resources available that generates questions and feedback from our HCPs or KOLs. So not just sharing the data, but actually making them start to think about the data and how they might change their behavior. What more might they want to see?
My biggest thing right now is just the more that the resources can help solve the HCP and KOL's problems, and help the field medical people talk about the problems as well, I think that's really important. Not just the data or the statistics, but, like, how do they fit into their practice? Where would they use it? All the actionable things, that's what people want right now. They can go read that publication, Rob, or just skim it, right? So they wanna know what, what do I do with this?
Rob: I think there's probably an assumption that the data that we're bringing to them is just as important to them as it is to us, and maybe in their world, the problems that they are trying to solve are very different. So I guess having a better understanding and those insights that you refer to really help us to all understand better what's keeping your physician up at night, for example.
Sarah: I love that, and also just the diversity of the audience, too. So the resources, you guys have a very difficult job because the resources also have to be able to be used with various audiences.
So sometimes that might mean a group presentation where you've got a mixed audience, and sometimes that just might mean an MSL has to use that same slide set for an academic and a community. So they have to be able to be nimble, and a lot of that is on the shoulders of the MSL to be able to take a slide deck and, and work with it, but just also thinking about that with the creation of the materials.
Rob: Gotcha. Interesting. Would you say that the slide deck is still the primary currency, um, that you're using?
Sarah: Oh, 100%. Yeah.
Rob: Okay.
Sarah: It is right now. I mean, whether or not it should be, I guess we could debate, but it definitely, most MSLs really prefer to present from slides.
Rob: Okay. Okay. I ask that question because I know that there's so many different types of resources that we pull together, different types of tools and things that, that we as medical communication professionals get excited about. A tailored video, or it could be, um, you know, a talking head, or it could be a- any one of these new technologically advanced types of things that we think are gonna be better communication tools. Are they not as useful?
Sarah: I think they're not as useful yet because MSLs aren't trained on how to appropriately take those in. You know, the, it's, the model has always been go in, have the conversation, use the slide deck, so it's familiarity and that's just what we've always done. Doesn't mean that it's right, but I have yet to hear from an MSL that they're really using those others as much as they probably should be, and I think the reason is they're just not sure how to incorporate it into a conversation.
Especially, it might be awkward if you only have 15 minutes to say, like, "I'm gonna play this video for you." The MSL's worried that that's gonna steal time away from their meeting time
Rob: Interesting. Okay. So if we shift a little bit now to, um, artificial intelligence, you've probably heard of that, I'm sure, AI, and, uh, utilization across medical affairs, but in particular, we're talking today about medical communications and our field medical colleagues. Uh, where does AI fit into all this for this discussion?
Sarah: Yeah, I mean, I think it is the discussion, right? Because that 15 minutes is gonna continue to go down if we don't provide additional value above and beyond what AI can provide. OpenEvidence is... you know, just continues to skyrocket. ChatGPT just rolled out something for physicians. So they're gonna go there unless we can provide something, and that's where that more actionable, what are we gonna do with the data, how can we bring this HCP in and really build a relationship and have that human element, so in the, you know, the material creation, thinking about that too, that it, the conversation has to be fostered.
Rob: So what I hear you saying is that now in the age of AI, some of the resources that maybe you might bring out to a healthcare practitioner, they already either have it, they found the answers, uh, to some of their problems because they're using large language models, we really need to shift back to what are the problems they still have, which gets back to our earlier conversation as to what's really happening for them at point of care.
Sarah: Yes, and I think that with AI, content creation is easy, right? So there's more content, more content, more content, so people just have a little bit of content fatigue. More isn't better. How can the content really be tailored and easy to use and meaningful? You know, it used to be we love to have a, a lot of different slide decks and things like that, and now it's almost like, gosh, less is more, right?
How can we use the resource and it, have it be really, really good but foster the communication?
Rob: No, that, that makes total sense, and, you know, I think we're really talking about entering an era of customization, tailoring, really thinking about that end user and their particular needs. Not that we haven't been doing that for years, but I think AI really allows us to speed up that process.
Uh, so when you consider AI and, and some of your field medical colleagues, um, how, how are you seeing it used for content development?
Sarah: So it depends. I, I mean, a lot of companies are limited on what they can do in these models unless they have an internal one that's approved. So I would say I'm not seeing as much content generation from individual companies as you would think. It's lagging behind other industries, right? But it's coming. And also, you know, the ability to take a journal article and make it into a podcast and things like that is stuff that field medical's using for their own training. They're using it for internal training, so people are getting more comfortable with those types of content generation.
Rob: Okay. Okay. So do you see future opportunities for, like, publication teams and field medical teams to work together, um, on some of these issues?
Sarah: I think there's never been more opportunity for the two to be collaborative. I mean, the good thing is it's easier to communicate now than ever before, too. So some of these systems are allowing MSLs to get their insights faster, and then those can go to the publication teams, too, right?
So that they can actually hear, how is this stuff being used, what do you need, and then go out there. And then I think in an ideal world, better training from the pubs teams. "Hey, we created this resource. Here's how to use it." You know, AI will hopefully free up some time so that that bidirectional exchange can happen.
Rob: Yeah, and this seems to be very thematic of a number of things that we've talked about during the course of this conversation is, you know, almost this assumption that we have on the medical communication side that you'll know those materials are there, you know how to use them.
Um, let's touch on the training piece a little bit more. What type of training do you think med comm professionals can do with their field medical teams to help them be better prepared?
Sarah: Well, th- 100%, any training is better than no training. So I mean, ideally speaking, they'll get to practice with the resources so the training is a little bit more interactive and ask questions about it, too.
The biggest thing, Rob, that we see is that when a piece comes out, so let's say med comms creates that slide deck or creates the whatever it is, the video, the field team, you might think automatically knows the why, but that doesn't usually happen. They don't know the why behind the resource creation and why they would use that particular one, who would be the right person to use it with.
So that would be where the training would have to start, and then the rest of the training would be, okay, now you know the why, and then n- let's get into the how, the actual tactical use of this, and go step by step. And that how is so important because consistency has been lacking in field medical. And consistency doesn't mean that it's scripted, but it just means that people are using it in the same way to make sure that the information put out there is consistent.
We can't really make fun of AI's hallucinations if we're no better as field medical teams.
Rob: We talked a little bit about, um, earlier about, you mentioned OpenEvidence, so we talk a lot about that in the publications med comm space because, I mean, listen, at the end of the day, we're working so hard to get a publication in a peer review journal only to find that it's being summarized at point of care through these tools. And, um, not to say that it's a bad thing, but it does make me wonder what role that, that plays or how that changes things for a field medical representative who's out there and instead of having that 15 minutes to produce that data, they're watching the physician just type stuff in and get a, get summarizations on the fly.
Like, what's different now?
Sarah: Yeah, I, I think everything is different now. The role has completely shifted, and it was already shifting a little bit just because people can go to the internet. I mean, obviously, but... and faster, right? But now the role is no longer, "Hey, Rob, I have a question about your data." By the time you get in there for the meeting, they'll have already gotten that answer to their question.
So it has to be, like, was the answer to your question what you expected, and how are you gonna use that data? And that next level conversation has to happen, and you gotta think, "What can I add value on above and beyond OpenEvidence?" I think a lot of, uh, this keeps me up at night to think about because there's people that say, "Oh, with AI, there won't be the need for MSLs anymore." And I don't believe that's the case because I do think that the role of the MSL is to also ask better questions, and we can do that better than in OpenEvidence. Uh, one of the things to think about as you're creating materials is that the initial question is rarely the question, right? So it's one of those things where somebody might type something in OpenEvidence and get an answer back, but was that really the root cause of what they wanted to know?
So if we can go a level deeper and really understand the customer, you know, OpenEvidence might not ever really truly understand the HCP or KOL 'cause they're trying to cover everything, and that's the advantage I think that the niche therapeutic area MSL and, and corresponding med comms would have, just a better understanding of the customer.
Rob: Well, I really like that because I sit and I, I try to contemplate how things like OpenEvidence are gonna change the playing field for all the medical affairs functions, and in particular, obviously focus on publications, medical communications. But…Truly, at the end of the day, there's probably some opportunity to partner on better tailoring and, and trying to think about the specificity that physician can't get at point of care when they're using OpenEvidence. How to better train them to use these tools perhaps is also another avenue that could be, could be helpful. Instead of trying to fight against it, uh, maybe work with it in some ways.
Sarah: Ooh, I love that too because I think it goes back to the, okay, when do you use what? And OpenEvidence is fine for maybe a basic theme, but we know that it doesn't include all the journals. It doesn't include all, you know, any information from pharma right now. I love, though, what you said because I think if we go in the mentality that I've heard some individuals say that we need to kinda like lower them down and scare tactics about it, we're not gonna stop the use. So it's more so, hey, when is the right time to contact your MSL? When is the right time to just... You need a fast answer, go for it.
Rob: Yeah. I think it's, um, it's an opportunity, right, to- And we talk a lot about, like, trying to relearn and re- reown the infrastructure by which data gets out there. And, you know, if we run across all of the medical affairs functions, run away from AI, run away from the fact that it's being utilized, and try to say, "No, it's bad" or scare tactics like you mentioned, it's gonna make us worse off in the end because it's definitely gonna be used either way.
So in the context of, you know, we, we've talked about a whole bunch of things, but in the context of bringing different resources to bear and in the context of AI, does metrics look different for field medical teams now, and how does that impact what we do when we partner with publication professionals?
Sarah: Yeah. I think it's important on your end to know that... and not every MSL team has metrics, but the ones that do, the metrics are a lot higher than they used to be, and they're very high as far as in-person visits, which makes sense when you think what we're trying to compete against, right, with AI. That in-person feeling definitely will boost the value of an MSL.
But metrics are probably at least 30% higher than they were even five, six years ago, so the demand to see more HCPs and more KOLs. Uh, and on that note, the question that you might have is, well, there's still the same pool of KOLs. How can the metrics be higher? Is it just more a frequency? And it's not that. It's that it used to be a typical KOL panel, and by KOL pan- panel, I mean an MSL is responsible in their geography to visit a certain number of people. That used to be 25, 30 people. It's anywhere from 60 to 100 at a lot of these companies now. So it's no longer just the top academic KOLs. It's now that MSLs are seeing a lot more of the community HCPs and also nurse practitioners and physician assistants as well.
Rob: That's interesting. You know, we tend to forget about the fact that there's all these other uh, stakeholders out there. And so, you know, we…traditionally for years we've talked about reaching the physician at point of care in, in practice. But the reality is that care delivery continuum is much broader these days.
Um, is there something that, that we should know on the publications, medical communications end about that, that shift, that phenomena?
Sarah: Yeah, 'cause when you think about that same slide deck or that same resource needing to be used for a community versus an academic, I think that's where you could put yourself in the MSL shoes, and it's not always that they need a separate one, 'cause then again, it's just almost too much.
But how can they have the ability to tailor the, what they say, you know, their talk track, and use the same resource? It's a tough thing.
Rob: Yeah. I guess we're talking about ultra-tailoring now because you're thinking about tailoring for all kinds of different, um, subsets. And so it really becomes...
But I guess that's where that AI component comes in as well, again- Potatoes ... because we have the, the resources to be able to do that moving forward. Interesting.
Sarah: True. Mm-hmm.
Rob: So if we, um, if we hone in just a little bit more on, you know, the current and the evolving relationship between medical affairs teams, but in particular publication med comms and field medical, are there things that you would have loved to have said to your publication med comm professional colleague but haven't said or want them to know?
Sarah: Yeah. So I would wanna see r- the biggest thing for MSLs right now isn't necessarily just the publication coming out, but it's the subsequent sharing. So, you know, they, they all have different tactics as far as... And I, I don't know the wording as well as you would, but the ability to share on X or the infographics that they require or the patient-specific things that they have in the publication, and that's a lot of times what the MSL will see is comments on X about the article or about something from it.
So how is that being taken into account too? 'Cause a lot of field medical right now is wrestling with, "How much do I get involved with these digital opinion leaders?" And that, that's not... I know that's not the scope of this conversation, but I think those are the things too that, is publications taking that into account?
If I got to spend a day with the publications team, those are the kind of things I would wanna know more about. How are we evolving?
Rob: Yeah. Well, it's interesting too that you brought up digital opinion leaders because it's, it's kind of an interesting question for all of us to grapple with, right? It's a sufficient distraction to, you know, evidence being delivered in a good way, in a solid way, and then it gets me into thinking, "Well, who actually owns that?" You know, is that, uh, field medical team trying to, you know, have some defensive strategy? Is that one of the publication or med comms teams trying to gather those insights and put them together? Do we just ignore them and run away? So it's, it's kind of a-
Sarah: Right? Yeah ...
Rob: You know, a, a tough scenario.
Sarah: It is really tough. I did a poll on that on LinkedIn probably 18 months ago. It'd be fun to see the results now, but it was who owns that marketing, medical, and most people still felt like marketing owned that. But I think that the problem is if someone's out there commenting on your publication and it ends up being a negative thing, is that marketing, or is it something where, you know, we should have had at least some type of visit, and it was the field medical that dropped the ball there? It's a conversation.
Rob: It sure is. It sure is.
Sarah: Yeah.
Rob: So I think we've covered a lot of interesting ground here. If I had to ask you as we start to wrap it up, are there some key takeaways that you might have for our publication med comm folks?
You know, I'd asked you before about what you'd want to say to them, but is there something with regard to how the fields are evolving that you'd want our listeners to know about?
Sarah: Yeah. I would say number one would be the shorter visit time. So just thinking about that with resource creation, I think maximizing time with resources that really matter.
I mean, I understand the importance of having the overview and things like that, and we have to have compliant slides, but being able to jump in quicker I think is really important right now.
And then number two would be the bigger scope of a panel of HCPs that field medical is responsible for, so a lot broader of individuals, and I think we covered that.
And then the third thing would be with AI, not just information dissemination, but more about what the information means. And so if, you know, the creative minds behind publications and med coms can ponder that, how can we take this to the next level so it, it is better reflective of what the data means, that's what we've gotta be able to do.
Rob: Yeah, and I love that term, um, resources that matter. I think that's really, really important, you know, because there's all kinds of things that we can produce, there's all kinds of tools and, and things that we can have, but really trying to hone in. I... What... I think the thesis of this whole podcast has really been to, I always use the word double-click, but to double-click on what actually works, what matters, and to take a page from, uh, from your comments earlier, um, insights. You know, all that really comes down to knowing what's going on, um, in reality, and then trying to solve those problems through tailoring, which I think is, is a, maybe even a more difficult way to go about this than just producing a bunch of stuff
Sarah: Yeah, I remember talking to an MSO about two months ago, and he was really frustrated because his company was requiring him to use specific slide decks and, or even specific slides.
And, you know, one of the things is if it's not working, like, let's pivot a little bit, too, right? So really listening to the MSLs, "Hey, this resource is landing. It seems like the physicians are really... they, they like this one," versus... And th- this isn't really med comm's responsibility, but it is something to think about when these are disseminated, sometimes MSLs are required to use certain things, and so feedback from them on the, the what's working is really valuable.
Rob: That's all for today. Thank you all for listening. Please take a minute to subscribe to In Plain Cite on your favorite podcast app. Share with your colleagues and rate our show highly if you liked what you heard today.
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