While the excitement about A.I.’s potential benefits to the meeting-planning process is undeniable, it’s natural for those who organize life-science events to have reservations. After all, using ChatGPT or another general-interest A.I. application is a non-starter due to information-security restrictions.
However, it’s becoming more cost-effective with each passing month for a company to have its own A.I. application that’s trained through the firm’s own datasets along with others fed into it. Alternatively, working with a medical-communications agency that has a proprietary A.I. application can bring opportunities for life-science firms to improve both event quality and compliance.
For companies that have made such a leap, one area where A.I. is already delivering results is in speaker training. During a recent webinar hosted by Informa Connect Life Sciences, reps from medical-communications agency ClinicalMind explained how A.I. is helping life-science firms make physicians more effective as speakers on different conditions, pharmaceuticals, and devices while staying within the host firm’s compliance threshold.
Coaching HCPs with A.I. Feedback
The main benefit of A.I. platforms is the ability to digest huge amounts of data and information and almost instantly find relevant patterns. From there, A.I.’s “generative” feature can provide suggestions on how to reinforce behaviors connected to beneficial patterns or alter behaviors connected to undesirable patterns. And the clearer and more detailed the prompt from the user, the better A.I. becomes at finding patterns and providing suggestions to get the desired results.
Well-crafted prompts are especially important because “A.I. struggles with nuance and subtlety,” says Bart Zoni, “In that way, it’s a lot like the character Sheldon Cooper from the TV show The Big Bang Theory: A.I. needs clear parameters, rules, and instructions” to properly execute a command to find patterns, identify best practices, and recommend effective changes.
For instance, ClinicalMind uses its proprietary A.I. platform—dubbed “Ana Innova”—to evaluate how well a healthcare professional presents session content based on the client’s desired touchpoints and approach. Specifically, the platform records HCPs’ practice runs and identifies where a speaker is missing information or lacking emphasis on key points as they present each slide, according to Ashley Kamil, executive vice president of strategy and engagement for ClinicalMind.
She notes that “some slides are difficult for HCPs to explain well. A.I. analyzes how all speakers have delivered that slide before” to find trends and make suggestions so the client can adjust how one HCP presents the material, or how all HCPs present the material. Further, A.I. can recommend future content ideas based on what HCPs are emphasizing, downplaying, or overlooking in their presentations.
The compliance department also benefits because the platform can analyze each HCP presentation based on prompts that specify restrictions and boundaries for how content can be delivered, and then suggest alternative approaches.
Other Ways A.I. Can Help HCP Performance
An A.I. platform can also help presenters prepare for Q&A sessions with fellow HCPs. Specifically, it can act as an HCP who has absorbed the presentation and asks questions; it then evaluates the presenter’s answers for content as well as compliance, and provides acceptable alternatives if an HCP’s responses fall short.
ClinicalMind’s Ashley Kamil also notes that “A.I. can analyze advisory-board conversations and gather HCP insights far better than through post-meeting surveys.” This can help the firm sharpen the focus and content of upcoming ad boards, even those taking place only days later.
Further, an A.I. platform can identify, from the totality of interactions HCPs have with the company, which physicians would likely do well as speakers on specific topics.
Lastly, A.I can create effective plain-language summaries for HCPs to use when discussing a condition, pharmaceutical, or device with patients.
