Global Pharma Company Modernizes Medical Information Management

Veeva Vault MedInquiry ensures speed and efficiency in responding to patients and healthcare providers

A leader in medical dermatology had recently moved into rare diseases and biologics along with acquiring new businesses. This expansion required them to accelerate their collaborations in new therapeutic areas while still focusing on patient-centricity as a core business strategy. It also placed added demands on its medical information team.

The global medical information organization set out to find a new cloud-based inquiry management system to support local teams in 30 affiliates. The solution must accommodate tens of thousands of preexisting medical information inquiries and associated adverse events and manage new case intake and fulfillment. After an extensive evaluation process, they selected Veeva Vault MedInquiry.

Finding opportunity in the cloud

While the previous medical information solution was meeting many of its needs, the IT and business teams realized they needed a more modern, cloud-based solution that would provide:

• Flexibility and control to make application modifications themselves as business needs change over time
• Easier, more intuitive user experience to increase speed and accuracy of case processing
• Synergy between medical information and other system applications, such as pharmacovigilance, to reduce manual entry and generate cost savings
• Increased security through features such as two-factor authentication

“We were delighted that all the affiliates quickly adopted Vault MedInquiry, including some who had been reluctant to use the previous medical information system.” — Global Principal Medical Information Specialist, leading dermatology provider

Global consistency with local flexibility

The standardization enabled by Vault MedInquiry, based on a global framework with flexibility at local levels, attracted the organization. This structure is crucial because each region or country may have slightly different processes for handling information requests, data privacy rules, and content, such as standard response letters.

Vault MedInquiry ensures the correct data visibility for each region, meets GDPR compliance rules, and allows users to modify standard responses in their language. This approach has not only improved productivity but facilitated the uptake and expanded use of the system by different affiliates.

“It was essential for us to ensure that affiliates would buy into the new system. We provided demonstrations as we were building the solution so they could gain familiarity with it and provide input on how it was configured,” explains the global principal medical information specialist. “This meant at launch; there were no surprises for our colleagues; they all knew what to expect. We were delighted that all the affiliates quickly adopted Vault MedInquiry, including some who had been reluctant to use the previous medical information system.”

Real-time integration with global pharmacovigilance system

Medical information requests are a frequent source of potential adverse events. With a goal of processing events within 24 hours, quickly transferring essential details of the case over to the pharmacovigilance system is a top priority. With Vault MedInquiry, the medical information team can ensure data accuracy while reducing the administrative burden of manual data re-entry. Utilizing the open API and interconnectivity of Vault MedInquiry, they configured a “magic button” which now sends any adverse drug event information to the global safety database on-demand, improving the flow and ensuring the accuracy of data processing.

Intelligent insights to make informed decisions

While regional flexibility was necessary for processing medical information requests and adverse events, the organization also wanted to analyze data at a global level. The dashboard and reporting functionalities of Vault MedInquiry allow global and local users to draw multiple insights from the data quickly.

“At our team meetings, it’s great to be able to pull up a dashboard for an instant snapshot of what’s happening across the whole medical information function,” stated the specialist. “We can see which products are generating the most inquiries and in which divisions. Vault MedInquiry is helping us show the contribution of medical information.”

“At our team meetings, it’s great to pull up a dashboard for an instant snapshot of what’s happening across the medical information function.” — Global Principal Medical Information Specialist, leading dermatology provider

Connection to CRM enables rapid follow-up to field inquiries

After implementing Vault MedInquiry to handle their medical inquiry requests and transfer of adverse events, the implementation team decided to integrate the system with Veeva CRM. In the past, medical science liaisons (MSLs) and field sales reps would email the medical information team when they had an inquiry from an HCP, such as an off-label question. This information would then need to be re-entered manually in the case-tracking system.

With the integration between Vault MedInquiry and Veeva CRM, each field representative enters the medical information request in Veeva CRM, which gets automatically transferred into Vault MedInquiry. The rep can also view the fulfillment status for medical information requests.

“MSLs and reps like recording their inquiries in the solution they are familiar with. More and more are now sending their inquiries to medical information through the Veeva CRM integration,” states a medical information leader. “Any time savings we can make in medical information we are grateful for.”

Partnering to meet long-term needs

The company’s implementation team worked closely with Veeva to ensure that the new application would handle the company’s expected increase in inquiries. In the end, it was not only the medical information management functionality of Vault MedInquiry that led to the project’s success but also its open architecture and ease of configuration. The medical information team now has an application tailored to meet its needs while adapting to future growth. As a leader in the group recalls, “The project was demanding and adrenaline- filled, but we made it through because of the great collaboration we had with Veeva from the start. We pushed Veeva to expand Vault MedInquiry further, and this was met with good grace and a shared frontier spirit from us all. I look back with great pride at what we achieved together.”