Announcing our partnership with Viata Cloud

We are delighted to announce our partnership with Viata Cloud, a leading CRM implementation and support firm. The Viata Cloud team has deep expertise in Veeva CRM and advanced knowledge of key activities that include sales planning and targeting, incentive compensation, territory alignment management, sample management, sales analytics, business intelligence, aggregate spend, digital marketing, medical legal review and content management.

Founded by Rick Sternquist, a Veeva Certified Administrator, Viata Cloud is headquartered in Deerfield, IL, with a network of experts across the US.

Custom Charts and Graphs

As you may know, we develop kernel with the participation of our Medical Affairs customers. A common request has been for more flexibility in building charts and graphs. We're glad to announce that today, we released CSV file download capabilities for managers with administrative privileges.
 
This new capability helps managers answer this question: how can I create custom charts and graphs using data in kernel?
 
Starting now, you may download the entire dataset associated with a topic -- including Poll Questions, Answers, Field Insights, More Details and Surveys -- as a CSV file.
 
This enables you to create custom charts in Excel. As an example, you can use CSV files to develop charts which display longitudinal feedback from a subset of HCPs, Institutions, MSLs or regions. You can also develop charts which compare multiple data points such as HCP perceptions and MSL interactions over time.
 
This new ability to download CSV files gives you more flexibility to create the right charts and graphs and share medical insights with your stakeholders. To download your data as a CSV file, simply select a topic in kernel and tap the "cloud" icon.

If you'd like a demo of our new CSV files capability, just let us know.

Communicating the True Value of Medical Affairs

We love this video from the Medical Affairs Professional Society (MAPS) from Robert J. Matheis, Ph.D, MA at Celgene! A few takeaways:

  1. Get close and personal. Choose the closest surrogates to the outcome.
  2. Talk to your friends. Measure complex components against functions.
  3. Tell a story. Place multiple surrogates together to fully describe impact (e.g., enrollment to publication to access)
  4. Threaten to leave. Use your metrics to describe negative outcomes if your function is not successful.
  5. Keep it real. Focus on priorities. Metrics that matter.

The entire video is well worth your time. Thank you, MAPS!

Announcing Contact Profiles

As you may know, we develop kernel with the participation of our Medical Affairs customers. One customer request is to view the historical feedback of a thought leader. Today, we released Contact Profiles to help MSLs and managers answer this question:

What is the historical feedback from a thought leader?

Starting now, Contact Profiles will display the number of interactions, interaction history and field insights from a thought leader, in real-time.

For MSLs, this helps you prepare for an upcoming interaction by reviewing the historical feedback and related details from a thought leader. For managers, this helps you assess the longitudinal feedback from your thought leaders, so you can effectively onboard new MSLs and guide current MSLs in their upcoming interactions.

Collectively, Contact Profiles help you drive the right strategies for your organization and demonstrate the value of Medical Affairs. To access a profile, simply visit kernel and view results on your laptop, iPad or smartphone.

If you'd like a demo of Contact Profiles, just let us know.

Announcing support for offline access

Since we launched kernel for Medical Affairs, a recurring request from our customers is the ability to enter thought leader feedback without Internet access (for example, on an airplane returning from a medical congress).
 
Today, we are delighted to announce support for offline access. Our new apps for Android, iPhone and iPad let your field medical colleagues:

  1. Record insights from thought leaders and medical congresses
  2. View their historical customer feedback and field insights

No Internet access is necessary. kernel will save your data and upload once your Internet connection is restored. Once your data is uploaded, your colleagues can view your feedback and insights immediately.
 
If you'd like a demo of our new apps, just let us know.

Announcing Institution Profiles

As you may know, we develop kernel with the participation of our Medical Affairs customers. One customer request is to view the collective feedback of thought leaders at a specific institution. We're glad to announce that on July 10, we released Institution Profiles to help MSL leaders and teams answer these questions:

1. What is the collective feedback from Stanford Medical Center?

Starting now, Institution Profiles will display the number of interactions, field insights and trending topics at your institutions, in real-time.

For MSL leaders, this profile helps you compare the collective feedback from one institution with another institution, so you can better assess your scientific objectives and strategies. For MSLs, this information helps you understand recent feedback from thought leaders at an institution, so you can effectively prepare for upcoming meetings.

2. Do we have the optimal coverage at Stanford Medical Center?

Institution Profiles will also display the number of thought leaders, number of MSLs, time spent and other valuable data at your institutions, in real-time.

For MSL leaders, this profile enables you compare your MSL coverage at one institution with others, so you can optimize coverage across institutions. It also allows you to view your team's activity in comparison with a previous time period, so you can assess whether your field activity is on track.

Collectively, Institution Profiles help you drive the right strategies for your organization and demonstrate the value of Medical Affairs. To access a profile, simply visit kernel and view results on your laptop, iPad or smartphone. 

If you'd like to see a live demo, just let us know.

Providing Medical Affairs with real-time insights and trends

Our friends at Belatrix just shared an interesting white paper on providing Medical Affairs with real time insights and trends. An excerpt: "Medical Affairs has a key role in bringing patient advocacy organizations into the drug development and approval process, which is critical in ensuring patient insights..."

A link to the complete paper is here: http://www.belatrixsf.com/whitepapers/providing-medical-affairs-real-time-insights-trends-overcome-2016-challenges

Thanks to Alex, Luis and the Belatrix team!

How to collect Medical Congress Insights

A few weeks ago, one of our customers asked if kernel could collect insights at a medical congress. They were preparing for the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) annual meeting in Vancouver, B.C. and needed a better way to identify and share insights with stakeholders.

Our customer had these objectives: a) identify new studies and presentations that were relevant to their medical strategy and therapeutic areas, b) present company research and ask for audience feedback, and c) assess unmet needs, partnership opportunities and emerging science.

We gladly explained that kernel can analyze insights across external sources:

  1. Healthcare practitioners
  2. IDNs and payers
  3. Patient advocates
  4. Medical congresses

To address the needs of our Medical Affairs customers, we designed kernel to be flexible so you can add or edit topics and questions in minutes. For example, you can create a topic for "AAN 2016" and any scientific sessions with no IT resources necessary. For each session, you may also specify your questions:

  • Is the session relevant to our medical strategy?
  • What are your top three takeaways?
  • What are the implications for the company?

During the session, your MSLs can answer these questions on a laptop, iPad or iPhone. Since their feedback is available instantly, your teams can view medical congress insights and trends in real-time, whether traveling or in the office.

"For each scientific session, our team captured the impact to our medical strategy together with the presentation data. The same day, we were able to analyze the data and identify regional issues and trends involving the clinical environment, patient pathways and treatment approaches."

-- a director of MSL operations, New York

In addition, you may easily download graphics as images, Adobe PDF, and Microsoft Word documents for creating presentations. This lets your teams compose daily reports to share with your stakeholders.

We designed kernel to help you identify insights and trends across external sources, including medical conferences. However, this is only the beginning as we continue to improve our application further. So when we share potential new features with you, it comes from a sincere desire for your feedback. Our goal is to build a valuable application that you love.

Defining the Value of MSL Teams

With our friend Dr. Alexander Tolmachev at MedAffairs.co, we wrote a PM360 article on Defining the Value of MSL Teams. An excerpt: 

"...medical value may include scientific data and insights related to the clinical environment, clinical studies, competitive landscape, new molecules, patient pathways or treatment approaches. Taken together, these insights can help identify key trends and issues across regions and may be filtered into medical and other discussions to assess and adapt scientific objectives, activity plans and future strategies."

A link to the complete article is here: https://www.pm360online.com/defining-the-value-of-msl-teams