Medical affairs teams learned a great deal when the pandemic forced a mass shift to asynchronous virtual advisory boards or virtual 1:1 meetings rather than traditional in-person events. And while many of us will eagerly return to face-to-face congresses and other large-scale networking opportunities, the way we work is forever changed – as are the processes and opportunities around how medical affairs creates value within the broader organization.
On the MAPS Content Hub, Within3 Vice President, Medical Affairs Mike Abbadessa makes the case that insights generation and overall value provision for medical affairs actually increased as a result of pandemic-induced challenges and how medical affairs teams solved them. These changes primarily occurred within three distinct areas:
- Support for diversity and inclusion across all aspects of key opinion leader engagement
- Freedom to contribute to scientific discussion, without inconvenience due to travel or one-time-only web meetings
- Increased access to a global community to draw perspective from a range of experiences
In a challenging business and scientific environment, virtual, asynchronous, and even hybrid engagement revealed efficiencies, accelerated timelines, improved insight generation, and opened opportunities for MSLs and medical affairs programs, opening the door for medical affairs teams to become a value center within their larger organization.
