Pharma Collaboration for Transparent Medical Information (phactMI) Benchmark Study: Trends, Drivers, Success Factors, and Value of Globalization in Medical Information.

BACKGROUND: Over the past decade, biopharmaceutical companies have been progressively establishing global frameworks across their capabilities. It is well recognized that the Medical Information (MI) department is a key externally facing function that needs to maintain a consistent focus on optimizing its capabilities of addressing product medical inquiries worldwide. METHODS: In the United States, a consortium named Pharma Collaboration for Transparent Medical Information, phactMI, a collaboration of pharmaceutical company MI departments dedicated to supporting health care professionals in their commitment to provide quality patient care, has provided a forum to benchmark and share best practices across the companies. In May 2017, phactMI conducted a survey inclusive of 25 biopharmaceutical companies to gain insight into the globalization of respective MI departments and relevant trends. RESULTS: We found increased trends in various aspects of globalization across large, mid, and small size companies, and identified key drivers for success. Overall, 16 of the 25 companies had globalized their MI department, 5 had only partially globalized, and the remaining 4 had not globalized. CONCLUSION: The findings of this survey will further help inform the MI community as to globalization approaches for a successful outcome.

A Theory on the Relativity of Factors Impacting the Utilization of Medical Information Services From the Pharmaceutical Industry.

Health care providers have many options for obtaining answers to their questions about pharmaceutical products. These options include drug information curators and aggregators such as ePocrates, WebMD, and Wikipedia, as well as professional journals. However, drug information obtained directly from a pharmaceutical company is arguably the best source of information regarding that company's medicine. This is because medical information (MI) professionals from the pharmaceutical industry have the product expertise, technical skills, and access to relevant information that enable current, evidence-based, and scientifically accurate information to be provided. Further, it is reasonable to assume that "good" information leads to better patient decisions and therefore better patient outcomes. Several factors are implicated in the use of a pharmaceutical company's medical information resource. These factors include, but are not limited to, awareness of the availability of the resource, ease of access, and trust of the information. In this paper, the authors discuss the relevance of these factors and propose an integrated relational theory (referred to as the "MI Theory of Relativity") to model the utilization and value of a medical information service.