Virtual 17th Annual Meeting of ISMPP
Day 3 key take-homes and insights
Patient engagement in a post-COVID world
Speakers: Alex Morton (NucleusX Consulting); Gerard Mortimer (Synaptik Digital)
The global COVID-19 pandemic has increased our dependence on digital platforms for work, school, socializing and even for accessing healthcare.
The convenience of remote access could allow for a more efficient healthcare system because people require less direct support to utilize certain services. It also increases access because patients do not have to travel for all appointments. Clinical trials also expanded the use of virtual methods during the pandemic. Using virtual tools allows patients to record information more often without having to travel to a specific location, and it increases the pool of potential participants.
However, some individuals struggle to access or to use digital services, or they prefer the support and reassurance that comes from face-to-face interactions. This means that reliance on purely remote systems could exclude many people from fully utilizing health services.
Social media has been a major distributor of information about drug development and the pharmaceutical industry throughout the pandemic. It is vital that companies make evidence-based information easily assessable, quick to understand and shareable to ensure the general public is correctly informed about current progress.
The pandemic has accelerated technological developments by years. While this makes accessing healthcare and information easier for many people, for others it poses greater difficulties. Consequently, the full range of individuals requiring these services must be considered in future developments.
Summarized by Elizabeth Coe, Associate Medical Writer
When social distancing meets social networking: how societies are embracing the new digital world
Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, most academic conferences either had to be cancelled or transferred into a virtual setting in 2020. The panelists (Angela Cochran, American Society of Clinical Oncology; Jennifer Regala, American Urological Association (AUA) and Alex Zapple, American Society of Nephrology) provided their experiences of this shift to virtual meetings and what the future of conferences may look like moving forward.
Key learnings
- Benefits of virtual meetings include increased accessibility and inclusivity; members who have caring responsibilities and/or work commitments are able to join more easily.
- Challenges of virtual meetings include reduced networking opportunities and reduced engagement. Therefore, a more pro-active approach is needed to keep attendees engaged, e.g. Zoom yoga, virtual treasure hunts and online networking platforms.
- To maintain engagement, consider offering virtual programmes over a longer period of time, e.g. AUA is going to be held virtually over a period of months concluding with an in-person conference.
- Ensure content and talks span a number of different time zones and that the content is available for a period time after the talk so that attendees can catch up later, if needed.
- Looking forward, it is likely that hybrid virtual and in-person conferences will become the norm. To prepare for this, innovative and adaptative approaches needed as we transition into this new way of working.
Future-proofing your organization with digital transformation of medical communications
The evolving technology landscape and concomitant change in digital competence and habits of stakeholders has underscored the importance of digital transformation in our industry. The increased urgency for information delivery and the physical workplace restrictions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic has spurred a transformation that will redefine the work environment of the future.
Digital transformation is driven by multiple factors, including information overload and the need for intelligent information distillation, changes in the modes of content consumption by end users (“bite sized” information and social media versus lengthy articles), emerging audiences (such as patients), and new technology platforms that efficiently disseminate vast amounts of information. The challenges are enhancing accessibility of content by assessing information delivery preference of end users, aligning content with audience needs, broadening content accessibility to diverse audiences, and improving communication efficiency both internally and externally.
Therefore, the digital future is one with an increased implementation of digital models for scientific engagement to prioritize reaching audiences using their preferred formats and platforms, and one that utilizes new ways to facilitate peer-to-peer interactions and collaboration with regulatory or client teams. Digital transformation is much more than technology integration. It begins with an assessment of business needs based on audience experience (how stakeholders interact with the company), and a clear vision of the present and future direction of the company. A core component is a cultural transformation that creates a supportive work environment and emphasizes operational agility to encourage employees to adopt new ideas, change behavior, and develop digital skill sets.
While the task of digital transformation may seem daunting, best practices recommend that it begins with smaller pilot projects that can be used to gain actionable insights using metrics that assess value and impact. Successful projects can then be expanded with improved internal communications and technological upgrades to ensure broad access to resources. This is necessarily accompanied by upskilling a diverse set of stakeholders with both soft skills (such as adaptability, accountability, emotional intelligence, complex communication) and technological skills to support project growth. While failures may occur, they provide valuable insight into approaches that would provide value to determining the best approach suited to each individual organization.
Tips for effective manuscript writing and feedback
Speakers: Katherine Molnar-Kimber, Lisa Humphries, Amy Foreman-Wykert
This presentation started with an overview of the steps in manuscript development and the setting up of an ideal timeline. In addition to working backwards from the target date for the timeline, the speaker noted that it is valuable at this point to discuss any time that the authors may be out of office or on holiday to avoid possible unpredicted delays.
During the kick-off meeting, it is useful to review the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations and the latest update of the Good Publication Practice (GPP3) guidelines. By the end of the kick-off meeting, the following items should be established: team, authors and stakeholders, responsibilities, manuscript type and journal, audience, timeline and key take-aways.
Other advice included the following.
- During development of a publication, contronyms should be avoided or must be clearly defined. The following are examples: consult, clip, overlook, oversight, put out, sanction, screen, transparent and variety.
- Consider different types of tables and graphs/charts, and ideal ways to display information clearly and concisely. Optimize readers’ retention of relationships in flow diagrams/figures by varying color in related elements.
- Consider avoiding “alter” or “alteration” because they don’t indicate direction or amplitude.
- Consult guidelines for reporting methods, including EQUATOR for clinical trials, ARRIVE for animal models, MIBBI for biological and biomedical investigations, and target journal guidelines.
- Consult a decision tree (an example was presented) to place essential methodology in either the main methods section or in supplementary files.
- Consider using words for search engine optimization in the title and abstract.
Explain what is expected at each stage of manuscript development (outline, drafts, final) and note that comments for revisions at each step should be clearly actionable, but also considerate in wording. Reviewers may have different priorities; with internal reviewers focusing on scope, accuracy and flow, while authors focus on data, clarity and context.
What is next for the FDA and what will it mean?
From 2009 to 2019, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had a dynamic period with strong leaders, good budget and high pace of approvals of initiatives to guide clinical trial design. However, 2020 was a challenging and damaging year for the FDA due to the impacts of COVID-19 and political attacks. Looking ahead in 2021, a new commissioner will be appointed by President Biden to rebuild the FDA’s credibility. The new commissioner is likely to have a lot of experience in the FDA and have a science-led focus. Priorities for the new commissioner will include the continued COVID-19 response, drug approvals (e.g. COVID-19 vaccines/drugs, and clinical trials and approvals delayed owing to the COVID-19pandemic), modernizing clinical trial designs, and facilities inspections. Other challenges for the FDA moving forward, include catching up on tasks and inspections delayed owing to the pandemic, addressing vaccine hesitancy in the USA, understanding and addressing the impact of COVID variants, and getting ahead of social media and 24-hour news.
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