This approach offered several notable improvements over the company’s previous process. Instead of dealing with multiple drafts through a disjointed email process, authors viewed and contributed to a single, authoritative draft secured in a secure system that prohibited unauthorized distribution. Comments and contributions were tracked in a familiar, collaborative interface that was already comfortable to most users.
Throughout the process, authors were consistently engaged through built-in tools like a daily digest email alerting them to new comments and responses, and the ability for the medical writer to “nudge” authors who needed to contribute or respond to a query. With less time spent creating revisions of the document, discussions and adjudication of issues within the publication were expedited.
The pharmaceutical company realized several valuable benefits by using the document co-authoring platform:
- Reduced the timeframe needed to create publication by several months
- Higher quality publication due to enhanced collaboration
- Improved author satisfaction
With the flexibility of the over-time discussion platform and document co-authoring capability, the pharmaceutical company completely transformed its manuscript development process.