Reimagining scientific publications

Omnichannel and artificial intelligence (AI) can seem mere buzzwords these days, but both are impactful approaches to meeting business and customer needs in scientific communications. Harnessing their potential in scientific publications takes flexibility, responsibility and vision across many stakeholders. How do we accomplish this if we aren’t even sure we’re all speaking the same language?

In a recent cross-industry expert panel discussion, representatives from AstraZeneca, Bayer, ISMPP and Healthcare Consultancy Group (HCG) Publications Center of Excellence found no clear consensus on the definition of omnichannel.

“I believe if you ask a hundred people for a definition of omnichannel, you’re going to get a hundred different answers,” says James Dathan, Global Publications Manager at AstraZeneca. “The fact that there isn’t a crystal-clear definition and the fact that it does mean different things in different areas of pharma and the business is a real positive and encourages the innovation and the creativity that we’ve seen in the last few years.”

With innovation comes challenges. For content to be easily repurposed in omnichannel, “we have to think modular, bite-sized content while keeping scientific accuracy intact”, according to Rajni Parthasarathy, VP of Scientific Services at HCG. Additionally, these enhanced content pieces may not have appropriate housing in some journals’ platforms, which can mean lower discoverability, or they may get less scrutiny in peer review because of the lack of defined requirements.

Rob Matheis, President and CEO of ISMPP, sees the lack of consistency across journals and congresses as something that needs to be addressed, “because ultimately these pieces benefit them as well in our shared goal of reaching and serving audiences”.

To meet the challenges, Parthasarathy cautions that companies and publications teams need to engage in “proactive planning to determine the appropriate format of the enhanced content that can accompany publications, and even the timing and cadence of disseminating these pieces”. The reward for planning an omnichannel approach comes about in our enhanced ability to reach healthcare professionals, even on emerging platforms.

Measuring the impact of publications and then using those learnings to adjust your communications plan is an important strategy for success. Another is to know your audience and tailor content accordingly. As Dathan points out, analysis of the sentiment and social commentary from the audience can inform future direction, resulting in more powerful publications.

As the next frontier of innovation in scientific publications, many are wondering how and when AI should be used. A new ISMPP position statement on AI starts to address this question and the concerns that publications professionals are raising about the technology.

Matheis acknowledged the broad strokes needed to encompass issues around AI, but he notes that “everyone that reads it should walk away with the idea that you have now been bestowed some responsibility for thinking about AI. You need to be aware of it, educate yourself on it and, if you’re going to go down the path of implementing it, you want to make sure you’re using it in a responsible way”.

AI is here to stay and while no one knows what its future looks like, many companies are currently experimenting with its uses. Maria Galindo Perez, Head of Medical Communications and Publication Excellence at Bayer, suggests small pilot projects that won’t have an impact on intellectual property as a start.

As Dathan explains, “there’s an element of mistrust with AI because of questions about how protected it is. I think there has to be an element of caution” to avoid compromising data and compliance issues.

Use of AI could focus on improving efficiencies in publications development rather than jumping too quickly into its content-generation capabilities, where plagiarism and invented references are major shortcomings.

“What we put in is what we get out,” reiterates Parthasarathy. “It’s not a black box”, which is helpful for disclosure of AI use in content development. “Eventually we will have standards as to how that information should be used for full disclosure, but right now we’re still in the infancy,” says Matheis.

Publications strategies won’t automate themselves and medical writers won’t be replaced by AI, but communications professionals who don’t learn to harness the power of these technologies risk being left behind.

Ultimately, these technologies are tools and it is the skill, vision and creativity with which we use them that can make the connections with our audiences richer.