Summary
We helped a leading pharmaceutical company set priorities for continuous improvement of its medical decision-making process.
Situation
There is increasing awareness within the pharmaceutical industry that the medical decision-making process is critical to optimizing benefit-risk of new products and responding effectively to post-market safety signals. Regulators are particularly interested in aligning decision-making processes between themselves, pharmaceutical companies, and Health Technology Assessors. A leading pharmaceutical company already operated with best-in-class medical decision-making processes. However, they were keen to explore emerging academic research and industry best practices for application to their process via continuous improvement.
Satori Solution
Our first step was to explore medical decision-making at the client and identify which decision-making bodies should be considered for improvement. We then polled participants in these bodies via an anonymous online survey, based on an academically sound questionnaire, to evaluate the process at both individual and organizational levels. Analysis was performed to understand perceived lower scores, and these were investigated further via in-depth interviews with key decision-makers. Survey results and interview comments were synthesized to develop prioritized and actionable recommendations for continuous improvement.
Results
• The large-scale medical decision-making survey was based on an emerging industry standard, and formed the baseline for comparing future continuous improvement initiatives.
• Executive leadership were provided with an in-depth assessment of current medical decision-making quality.
• Recommendations were accepted by company executives as a roadmap for continuous improvement initiatives.