Implementing Conversational AI Solutions in Medical Information

2 case studies outlining business and operational considerations

By Shailini Blackwell

Pharmaceutical companies continue to accelerate their interest in, and deployment of, conversational artificial intelligence (AI) – text or voice virtual assistants – to support medical functions including Medical Information. At our recent PIPA Conference in September 2021, Orion Pharma (UK) Ltd. (together with their partner, conversationHEALTH) and Lifelink Systems overviewed process and strategic considerations as well as outcomes for PIPA members to consider when looking to implement a solution. Julie Boothe; Orion Pharma UK Shailini Blackwell; conversationHEALTH Justin Mardjuki; Lifelink Systems

The case for change – customers want to engage digitally, 24/7, with one business

With healthcare professional (HCP) and patient behaviour and expectations having shifted over the past 18 months to a digital-first business engagement, the opportunity for Medical Information (MI) departments to capitalise on technology is very much “now”. As Justin Mardjuki from Lifelink Systems shared, 97% of text messages are opened in less than 3 minutes, and this is not just driven by friends and family but now transcends engagement with business, social and other day-to-day engagements.

Medical Information are now “front-of-house” – the gateway to the business as HCPs demand scientific content with as little hassle as possible when it comes to access and authenticity. As Julie Boothe, from Orion Pharma, identified for her organisation “Customers want to get in contact with the company, get their response and leave”. Justin agreed from the patient perspective “Patients get stuck in the middle of pharma’s siloes…. we need to remove the friction for patient experience and make it as humanly-easy as possible”.

Change management – the need for a multidisciplinary approach

The use of conversational AI across pharma and life sciences continues to accelerate and MI is a cornerstone of this adoption. With a need to increase reach and accessibility to customers as well as a real opportunity to digitally transform legacy systems and processes, MI teams across pharma are looking to automation as a means of freeing up human headcount for businesscritical and strategic work. As Justin highlighted, “We now have the ability to augment current teams with conversational AI which can double or triple the number of touchpoints we have with patients” However, as Julie noted, this requires multiple stakeholders across the organisation to come together to explore the requirements, skillsets and outcomes for an enterprise solution. First for Julie was Commercial. “Our customers are the same, they don’t see us as medical or commercial, they see us as one organisation. There is a need to fit the business strategy and ensure that customers are getting the best experience when engaging with Orion”.

Alongside Commercial, we need to ensure there is a seat at the table for Legal, Compliance, PV, Data Privacy, IT, Regulatory and QA/validation leads to the groundwork being in place from the outset to support global scaling across the organisation, rather than just a pilot or one market approach. It means automation of workflows and processes that will drive a change management strategy for the human workforce alongside technology has a 360° business view applied to it immediately, facilitating accelerated growth across the business. As quoted in a recent paper from IQVIA, “Automated agents are better and faster at responding to simple inquiries and reviewing documents, freeing live agents to do more value-added work.” Regulatory and Compliance Validation requirements are a critical component for consideration and approval of an enterprise conversational AI solution: ensuring all requirements are

met for audit and regulatory/compliance. A refreshing realisation, Julie noted, was that many existing SOPs and processes for validation and QA were applicable to this new technology - “The organisation soon realised they had a lot of knowledge and capabilities to readily apply to this new technology.” This saved time and, crucially, expanded the interest and organisational excitement to bring in this new channel for customer engagement. Another “penny drop moment” as Julie described it, was the realisation that many of the existing workflows for training and deploying human staff (e.g. outsourced call centres, internal staff) would be applicable to the conversational AI agent.

Early results – improving reach, engagement and customer satisfaction

But are HCPs and patients engaging in such text and voice virtual assistants to communicate with pharma, its brands and services? The answer is a resounding yes.

One case study presented by Justin from Lifelink Systems - on clinical trial recruitment and site visit bookings for the Operation Warp Speed Phase 3 COVID-19 trial - demonstrated impressive results. For such a large-scale trial, needing to recruit tens of thousands of patients in a matter of days (rather than years), it was clearly understood that humans alone would not reach this goal. Leveraging conversational AI meant: 1. The ability to enrol patients, identify local sites to patients and schedule first visits through a digital engagement 2. A reduction of trial recruitment timeline to 3 days 3. A high patient satisfaction level, with 93% preferring the chatbot over traditional phone methods Data shared by conversationHEALTH about their medical applications in the global market indicates a significant reflection of customer behaviours today – wanting 24/7 access at a time and in a channel that suits them, and that, if done well, will improve customer satisfaction: • 40% usage out of hours • 4.5 satisfaction rating • >96% of questions successfully managed by the conversational AI agent

AI-powered virtual agents – enabling a new, hybrid model for MI to engage with customers

Conversational AI continues to represent an exciting digital tool that is rapidly being deployed both globally

and regionally by pharma and life sciences companies to enhance MI services and capabilities. By freeing up the time of experienced MI teams to do more business- and strategic - work, automation through AI-powered agents also brings a smart, digital-first channel into the mix for scientific exchange between customer and company. Having humans working with and alongside technology in a hybrid model that is easy, seamless and provides greater insight into customer needs will only benefit brands and teams in the future.

References:

https://www.iqvia.com/en/library/white-papers/the-truth-aboutconversational-ai

Shailini Blackwell

Managing Director, Europe conversationHEALTH