1 Oct 2024
Medical Science Liaisons (MSLs) and Their Impact on Healthcare Outcomes
Medical Science Liaisons, or MSLs, as they are called in common parlance, are field professionals who work in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies and with relevant stakeholders within the United States medical system and internationally.
Typically, MSLs are highly knowledgeable experts in their therapeutic areas. Such expertise makes them effective at their multifold responsibilities. One of these key responsibilities includes engagement with Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) and other Healthcare Professionals (HCPs). MSLs usually meet KOLs at their clinics, medical institutions, and congresses. They often share perspectives and insights on topics ranging from products to the latest innovations that can enhance collaboration. By advising on the latest health and technology developments or supporting clinical trials, MSLs play a crucial role in affecting patient health outcomes.
This pool of knowledge, which comes from their advanced degrees, such as a doctorate, and their knowledge network with healthcare professionals (HCPs) and medical groups makes MSLs a significant player in the health ecosystem. As such, their impact creates ripples throughout the system, reaching all the way to the individual patient.
In this article:
Let’s break down how MSLs have become such an influential factor in the healthcare industry.
Roles And Responsibilities of MSLs
As touched upon previously, an MSL has several roles and responsibilities that have slightly different outcomes when interacting with different stakeholders. Their network expands to physicians, primary care health professionals, academic institutions, and patient groups.
They interact with both internal stakeholders as well as external stakeholders. This flowchart can help you get a general sense of this statement:
The Internal Stakeholders
1. Medical Science Liaison and Medical Manager
Medical Science Liaisons (MSLs) and Medical Managers work closely together to drive both clinical and business outcomes within healthcare organizations. MSLs gather and provide critical scientific insights, clinical trial data, and real-world feedback from healthcare professionals, which Medical Managers rely on to shape business strategies. This collaboration allows Medical Managers to formulate evidence-based strategies, plan effective product launches, and position products accurately in the market.
In turn, Medical Managers use these insights to implement broader organizational goals, manage resources, and ensure alignment between clinical needs and business objectives.
The continuous exchange of information between MSLs and Medical Managers ensures that medical knowledge and business strategy are integrated for effective decision-making, leading to better healthcare delivery and market success.
2. Medical Science Liaisons and Brand Managers
Medical Science Liaisons (MSLs) and Brand Managers collaborate closely to ensure a product's success throughout its lifecycle. MSLs provide critical scientific insights, clinical trial data, and feedback from healthcare professionals, which Brand Managers use to shape effective marketing and product strategies.
This collaboration is essential for Brand Managers, as the data and expertise shared by MSLs allow them to better understand market needs, patient outcomes, and therapeutic advancements. With this knowledge, Brand Managers can tailor marketing messages, design promotional campaigns, and create strategies that resonate with healthcare professionals and patients.
3. Medical Science Liaisons and Regulatory Affairs
Regulatory Affairs is responsible for ensuring compliance with the legal framework of the governing authority. They must ensure compliance at every stage of product development, at the marketing level, and in distribution. In addition to providing technical advice from their interactions with Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), Medical Science Liaisons (MSLs) collaborate closely with internal regulatory teams to prepare submissions for regulatory authorities. These documents relate to product safety, efficacy, and quality standards.
The External Stakeholders
In addition to their interactions with internal stakeholders, their communication and engagement with external stakeholders set them apart from other overlapping job titles in healthcare.
1. MSLs and KOLs & other Healthcare Professionals
Collaboration between Medical Science Liaisons (MSLs), key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), and other healthcare professionals is foundational for driving advancements in clinical practice and patient care.
MSLs rely heavily on the expertise and insights of KOLs to stay informed about the latest developments in their therapeutic areas. By engaging with these experts, MSLs gather crucial feedback on products, clinical trials, and patient treatment outcomes. This helps pharmaceutical companies adapt their strategies based on real-world data.
In turn, KOLs benefit from the scientific knowledge that MSLs bring from within the company, such as updates on new therapies, clinical research, and product developments. MSLs facilitate two-way communication, ensuring that the feedback and insights gathered from KOLs are relayed back to the pharmaceutical company to inform future research and development.
This collaboration allows MSLs and KOLs to work together to shape clinical practices, advance medical research, and ultimately improve patient care.
2. MSLs and Academic Institutions
MSLs focus on Academic Medical Centers (AMCs) to identify and build relationships with KOLs. AMCs play a critical role in the healthcare ecosystem, serving as hubs for cutting-edge research, clinical trials, and expert knowledge. These institutions are home to researchers, subject matter experts (SMEs), and thought leaders who significantly contribute to advancements in healthcare.
By engaging with these professionals, MSLs can tap into valuable insights, foster collaborative opportunities, and expand their network of experts. The relationships built at AMCs are essential for driving innovation, facilitating the dissemination of new clinical data, and ultimately improving patient care.
3. MSLs and Patient Advocacy Groups
The collaboration between MSLs and Patient Advocacy Groups (PAGs) is critical for advancing patient-centered healthcare. PAGs represent the collective voice of patients, advocating for their rights, providing support, and sharing insights into their experiences, needs, and preferences, especially for specific conditions. This valuable information is an essential resource for MSLs, who use these insights to inform pharmaceutical companies about the real-world needs and challenges patients face.
In turn, MSLs leverage the information gathered from PAGs to influence drug development, treatment plans, and personalized medicine approaches. By integrating patient perspectives into the development and communication of therapies, MSLs help ensure that the treatments being developed are not only scientifically effective but also aligned with patients' actual needs and preferences.
Challenges Faced By MSLs
The role of MSLs is quite expansive, but it's not without its accompanying challenges. Some of these include:
1. Adapting to New Ways of Communication
Much of the communication process has undergone a major haul in favor of technology. The conventional ways of identifying a KOL, approaching them, and engaging them are now done via digital tools. Proficiency, as well as sound knowledge of healthcare solutions, can set professionals apart.
2. Vast Amounts of Data Points
Becoming an expert requires drawing from multiple sources, a key responsibility for any MSL professional. They need to be proficient not just in their subject knowledge but also in keeping up with recent trends, emerging breakthroughs, and new clinical research. This flooding of information can be overwhelming, but proper use of digital tools can help make sense of huge chunks of data into digestible bits.
3. Travel Frustrations & Scheduling Conflicts
The work of an MSL and travel go hand-in-hand. MSLs often have to workaround complex schedules at primary care offices and other healthcare institutions. Finding a right set of physicians and scheduling time with busy physicians remain a significant logistical challenge for MSLs. Very few MSL professionals can perform their jobs from a stationary location; as field-based professionals, travel is a necessity. Additionally, scheduling meetings with relevant HCPs during their daytime patient appointments can be particularly challenging.
4. Specialized Training
While geographical boundaries have no bearing on the roles and responsibilities of an MSL, interacting with highly knowledgeable experts in their field can be intimidating. An MSL must adopt and understand the medical jargon, abbreviations, and manner of speaking. In addition to industry knowledge, they must possess excellent communication skills, presentation skills, emotional intelligence, and a sharper and more detail-oriented mindset.
5. Usage Of The Right Technology
Choosing and implementing the right technology plays a significant role in the functioning of MSLs. With the demands of their job stretching across a vast geographical territory, MSLs need to be proficient in digital platforms that can streamline their work. One of their primary responsibilities is identifying and engaging relevant KOLs. This process can be cumbersome when done manually across large regions. In such cases, technology provides a significant advantage, allowing for more efficient and accurate KOL identification.
With the increasing integration of health and technology, MSLs can use digital tools to streamline these processes for convenience.
MSLs and Digital Transformation
Advancements in healthcare have fast-tracked our progress by at least a decade. And that is just the beginning. The newest technologies are making things possible on a wider scale and for various professionals. For MSLs, whose functions are dual-fold (gathering and disseminating information), such innovations are making remarkable strides.
KOL Interaction: One of the key functionalities of MSLs is interacting with the relevant KOLs, which can be done by robust platforms such as konectar.
AI-powered platforms like konectar enhance this process by enabling MSLs to target KOLs based on specialty, region, affiliations, and event participation. In addition to streamlining the identification process, konectar allows MSLs to track and document their interactions with KOLs, creating a centralized database of engagement history.
Adopting digital tools and information technology in healthcare allows MSLs to function optimally. You can learn more here.
Personalized Medicine: With the emphasis on individual medicine, the newest trend has been the emergence of functional medicine doctors. These types of professionals differ from traditional medical doctors in their focus. A functional medical doctor takes an integrative and holistic approach to patient care.
(MSLs) can support practicing medical doctors by sharing expert knowledge and valuable insights gathered from Patient Advocacy Groups (PAGs). This helps doctors stay informed about patient experiences, treatment outcomes, and emerging trends in medical care, enhancing their decision-making and patient management.
Value-based Care: Personalized medicine is making the possibility of value-based care in healthcare a reality. A value-based model of healthcare is a patient-centered approach that emphasizes on improving patient outcomes while simultaneously reducing the cost of availing such services.
MSLs contribute to making this a practical model by sharing their expert knowledge and clinical insights from KOLs. The driving force is advancements in digital and medical tools that offer real-world data and evidence-based healthcare practices.
Conclusion
The role of Medical Science Liaisons cannot be understated, especially in the United States, and they are becoming a vital part of the healthcare ecosystem. As the world enters the post-pandemic era, the advancement of medical technology is bound to play a key role in the profession of MSLs.
With both internal and external stakeholders to manage and cater to, the life of an MSL can be exciting, but it comes with its own challenges. And now you know them, to keep up with developing changes as they happen in the medical landscape, be sure to check this space often.
FAQs
- What is a Medical Science Liaison?
A medical science liaison is a specialist in the healthcare landscape who is primarily a field-based professional. These individuals have the critical task of communicating with internal and external stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem.
- What are the primary responsibilities of an MSL?
MSLs have the complex task of gathering and disseminating medical information to HCOs, HCPs, Medical Advisors, Medical Managers, Academic Institutions, and Patient Advocacy Groups. They also play a significant role in supporting clinical trials and keeping up with medical research.
- How do MSLs influence healthcare outcomes?
MSLs influence health outcomes through their interactions with internal and external stakeholders in the healthcare industry.
- Who are the internal stakeholders of an MSL?
An MSL has to engage with internal stakeholders, including Medical Advisors, Medical Directors or Managers, Brand Managers, and Regulatory Affairs teams.
- Who are the external stakeholders of an MSL?
The external stakeholders include Healthcare Professionals (Medical Doctors, Functional Doctors, physicians), Healthcare Organizations (HCOs), Academic Institutions (hospitals and universities), and Patient Advocacy Groups.
- Do MSLs travel a lot?
Yes, approximately 70% of the time, an MSL is involved in traveling. That percentage might vary from individual to individual based on expertise and age, but that is generally a good benchmark. And remember, this is a field role.
- How has technology in healthcare affected the role of an MSL?
Digital transformation helps MSLs identify and engage with HCPs and KOLs, support personalized medicine, contribute to value-based healthcare, and efficiently gather and share accurate scientific information.
- What are some of the challenges faced by MSLs?
Like any other profession, MSLs face their share of obstacles, such as adapting to new communication methods and technology, incorporating diverse medical data, dealing with travel demands, and requiring specialized training and personal skills.
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