Building a cohesive communications plan that aligns multiple disciplines, incorporates data-driven storytelling, and coordinates strategic evidence is the foundation of strategic excellence. But developing this plan requires thinking differently. Instead of working in siloes to achieve individual objectives, an integrated medical communications approach highlights collaboration, multidisciplinary stakeholder involvement, and a seamless content approach that drives audience-centric engagement. And that’s where Medical Affairs comes in.
As the role of Medical Affairs continues to evolve from publications and tactical executor to strategic driver, this discipline is uniquely positioned to partner with multiple internal stakeholders across disciplines to develop an integrated medical communications plan that communicates the product vision and value proposition to all its stakeholders in a clear and consistent manner. The Medical Affairs focus on generating, integrating, and communicating scientific evidence naturally feeds into both the clinical and commercial aspects of the plan, acting to bridge and integrate the two disciplines in ways that enhance consistent and cohesive scientific narratives across the entire span of drug development.
Source: MAPS MedComm FAWG Whitepaper, 2022.
Practical tips for creating a successful integrated medical communications plan
A successful integrated medical communications plan starts with strategic alignment across stakeholders. This strategy sets the vision for Medical Affairs, with priorities from R&D, Regulatory, and Commercial teams driving plan strategy. The strategy should link short-term wins to long-term objectives across the span from clinical development to commercialization and consider internal as well as external stakeholders.
Tip 1: Optimize cross-functional partnerships
An inclusive and collaborative approach breaks siloes and amplifies impact by ensuring internal alignment across multidisciplinary teams. While insights and data inputs can be assessed by individual teams, there should be a representative core group that can take those data, assess the insights for strategic relevance, and align on next steps. This will contextualize decisions and inform future directions and rationales. The core team is often chaired by the Medical Director for the therapeutic area but can vary by organization. Be sure to include joint KPIs in your integrated medcomms to enhance co-creation and deliver customized content that resonates with various stakeholders, as well as to set a standard for joint accountability for meeting strategic business objectives.
Tip 2: Insights alignment to strengthen integrated medical communications
Insight alignment is key to bridging data gaps that occur when information is fragmented among various internal teams. Couple healthcare provider (HCP), payer, patient, and caregiver insights with real-world evidence (RWE) and analytics to inform integrated medcomms priorities. Synthesizing integrated insights into an actionable integrated medical communications plan starts with identifying which insights are strategically relevant and actionable across different internal stakeholder teams. This can help with messaging, format, and platform decisions, and prioritizing channel choices. Knowing how external stakeholders understand and consume content is integral to deciding what content your target audience receives, when, and how. This is critical in modern medical communications practice.
Tip 3: Storytelling as a unifying tool
Stories make complex data relatable. For example, simplifying clinical trial results for field teams can make their conversations more productive and knowledgeable, building trust and connections with key stakeholders. Mapping the patient journey data gathered from multiple stakeholders can tailor seamless scientific narratives and create a deeper, richer understanding of how to achieve brand goals internally, and set the stage for successful audience interactions externally. Lastly, having a cohesive narrative that spans the drug development continuum can shape positioning that resonates in the market and differentiates your drug from early awareness through lifecycle management. This kind of narrative is at the heart of effective integrated medcomms excellence.
The business case for integrated medical communications plans
When planned and executed correctly, integrated medical communications plans drive measurable value. Individual teams should be aware of, understand, and align on insights that will drive their vision forward. Early inclusion and collaboration are key to creating a successful integrated medical communications plan. There should be a commitment to ongoing conversations across disciplines and regular touchpoints by the core team to refine and update the integrated medical communications plan as KPI data come in and information is disseminated throughout the cross-functional team. This coordination can help reduce redundancies, overlap, and duplicative efforts among various individual teams, streamlining the communications plan process and execution, as everything is decided in partnership.
By taking a holistic approach to strategy and planning and creating an inclusive environment for idea sharing, companies can develop an overarching medical communications plan that maximizes engagement with internal and external stakeholders, meets their communications objectives, and ensures their vision is communicated consistently, compellingly, and cost-effectively.
Laura Perry
Vice President of Marketing