Hey, guys. Welcome to the podcast. My guest today is Scott Thompson. He is the CEO of Acceleration Point, and we talk about the move to medical excellence and why medical excellence initiatives are so important for medical affairs. Awesome conversation. Scott's brilliant. I think you guys are really gonna like this. Don't forget to try to join us for MSL talk live, which is typically the 1st Tuesday of every month at 1:30 PM EST.
Times do vary, so check out notifications and listings on LinkedIn. And thank you guys for your support of the podcast. Welcome to MSL talk with Tom Caravella, a podcast specifically designed for MSLs and all things field medical. Hey, Scott. Thanks for joining me. Welcome to the podcast, my friend. Thanks, Tom. Looking forward to it. Yeah, man. So hey, guys. Scott and I you you guys know I like to describe how and why, you know, I get together with folks.
So Scott and I, we've we've met through the industry being vendors, seeing each other at conferences, and, became friends and colleagues, and we've done some work together. And, I was dying to have Scott on the show, especially since he's really done a tremendous, tremendous job in the medical affairs space and helping companies in their medical excellence programs. So I'm like, this guy, we I need to share him with you. So that's that's how this whole thing came about.
Before we do that, Scott, why don't you do an introduction, tell everybody who you are, where you're from, all that good stuff. Sure. Thanks, Tom. Really excited to be here. I'm Scott Thompson, co CEO at Acceleration Point. For the last 10 years, I've been helping medical affairs teams identify and communicate their value, generate better insights, and engage better with, with the medical community. My background before that was in organizational effectiveness across many industries.
And, you know, for the last 25 years of experience, bringing that into medical affairs has just been, it's been just so rewarding, a lot of fun. And and, guys, that's the humble, like, version of Scott. The guy's a freaking genius. Seriously. He's, like, one of the smartest guys I know. Just before we even started talking, he just gave me this huge tip on how to, like, be more productive in my day, which is a whole another podcast.
But so before we jump into it, I wanna invite everyone, something new that I'm really excited about. And it only took us three and a half years, but we actually have an MSL Talk Podcast newsletter that I'm really excited to share with you guys. And, if so, if you go to mslmastery.com, just click on the button. It's like MSL talk podcast newsletter or sign up or something. You'll see the button right there. And and it's free. So get the newsletter and join our community.
And what happens is there's gonna be, not just a newsletter, but, like, bonus footage and extra videos, extra content. So if if you guys like what you see here on the podcast, definitely join us, for our newsletter and for, and become a member. Again, it's free. So, we're gonna talk about medical excellence because it's a big, big thing now in medical affairs. There's departments. Now there's growing departments in medical affairs dedicated to medical excellence.
So, Scott, tell us what this is and, you know, why it's so important. Sure. Yeah. So the way I think about it is, you know, medical affairs is a machine. Right? And the machine of medical affairs really is designed to generate data, get it validated through the industry, educate HCPs, right, engage with them Mhmm. And to bring back insights about how to, continue growing that strategy. Okay? Medical excellence is another gear. It's the machine that builds the machine. Mhmm. Right?
It's the team that puts together how medical goes about doing that. Got you. Now let me stop there for a second, guys, and invite you I really think you need to if you're listening to this, great. But I think you need to go to YouTube and watch this because Scott has this really cool tool where he's pulling up this digital whiteboard, and he's actually showing, like, writing diagrams and stuff. So there was this whole tutorial going on as he was speaking.
So I wanna just invite you guys to check this out on YouTube because there's a whole another element to it. It's gonna be more interactive. So okay. Great overview. But let's talk about the, like, the main responsibilities and initiatives that exist within medical excellence.
Sure. So, you know, so for each part of medical affairs, whether it's field medical, sci comm, medical strategy, this medical excellence team is really the ones responsible for designing how that organization is going to work. And in that toolkit, they have processes. Right? So they sit down and they say, here are the steps, here's the flow, here's how we're going to do that work. Right? So whether it's putting together the scientific engagement model, right, for field medical.
It could be what is our approach for selecting and engaging at congresses if you're working with the, SICOM team. Right? You start with process, and these are the folks that say here are the steps that we're gonna follow. 2nd, these are the folks responsible for technology and data. Right? So these are the folks that are building the tools, buying the tools, establishing what data do we need in order to enable those processes. This might be for field the people responsible for your CRM.
It might be the people responsible for your publication systems, whatever the tools are. Next is you build capabilities. Right? So this is your training and development function. This is anywhere that you are saying, hey, you need new skills, new knowledge, new capabilities to do the job. And then the last part that I find in this excellence function is what we would call support. Right?
And this is when, maybe it's medical operations, might be a title for this, but it's really the group that might take work off of the, rest of the medical team so they can focus on the things that they're bringing. So that's really what this medical excellence team is doing. And for each function they support, they would use these tools to help the team be more effective. Got you. And that's that's funny. You you mentioned the word tools.
Like, I always when I think of medical excellence, I think of process and tools and, you know, what's what's going to help the medical affairs department achieve its strategic goals? What tech and tools and programs? But the way you described it, there's so much more to it. And I I I know at one point for at least for me, and I think a lot of people, medical excellence was just kind of a fancy word for training Mhmm. For medical affairs training and support.
So explain how it it it's evolved into what it is with all the stuff that you just explained. Yeah. It's funny you say that. So my background before before the work I'm doing in, in medical was in learning and development. Right? I was chief learning officer, you know, did a lot of stuff in learning.
And one of the things that I find is that as a training and development professional, as as a field medical trainer, as an example, by the time you get something and you're thinking, how am I gonna stand up in front of 30 or 40 or 50 people and teach them how to do it? That's often the first time that somebody's thought about it in enough detail to get it right. And so it's always these training folks that are going back and saying, wait a minute.
Are you sure that's what you want me to teach them to do? Because that doesn't make any sense. And then whoever designed the process goes, oh, yeah. That's probably not a good idea. Let's fix it. Right? So training has always been kind of this pivot point between the people saying here's how we do stuff or here's the tool you have to use and the people who have to use it. And so it's just been a natural extension for for that role to often move into this broader medical excellence to say, hey.
I'm gonna work upstream. I'm gonna work to make the processes better. I'm gonna work to say, hey. Before you ask me to teach somebody to use that tool, I want some input to help make it simpler to use, to make sure it's fit for purpose, to help, you know, convert whatever, vendor was, you know, building it for commercial and make it right for medical before I have to stand in front of my team and tell them they have to use it. And it it and is is that why medical excellence became a thing?
And why, you know, why is it so important? How did this how do we get to this? Is that partly why? Yeah. You know, I think that it's becoming more important because of two reasons. The first is that it's becoming more complicated. There's so many choices. There's so many options. And the second and more important one is that medical affairs is seeing value in it. See, this work has just always been done. Right? It was usually part of somebody's job.
So either the medical director would do it as part of their job. Training might do it as part of their job. Field medical would do it as part of their job. But it was just recently that they added a leader and a team responsible for doing this work. Right?
And that's when these medical excellence functions came up, and it's because we needed to start to have people who, focus and develop their capabilities around the process, around the tech, around, the support, and not just do it as part of their day job. Got it. Awesome. And by the way, guys, seriously, check out YouTube because Scott is just dropping bombs, and he keeps adding to his charts and graphics. And it's really cool, the technology he has.
And even if you just kinda check it out just to see what it is, it's actually really cool. But, learning a lot over here, following along. So let's let's talk about, I know and I, Scott, you're the perfect guy because I know you work with a lot of companies. So you see a lot of different things, and you see a lot of challenges and problems.
So can you talk about, like, what are some of the main challenges that companies are going through right now as it relates to medical affairs initiatives and why medical excellence is so important in in in overcoming those challenges? Sure. You know, I I see, there's really 3 trends, 3 challenges. So the first is that medical is really being held to the mat right now. Right?
We are when I logged in to some of the professional societies and look in their vaults of all the training and all the webinars, 100 and 100 and 100 of people have done a webinar on measuring and communicating the impact of medical affairs, and they all result in the same outcome, which is we don't know how. And so that is the big, first challenge that medical has is, and medical excellence is in a perfect position to help define better and practical ways of measuring and communicating impact.
And, I don't know if anybody here knows Linda Traylor. Linda's our VP of medical excellence. She's an industry legend, and she has been doing some amazing work with teams to help actually articulate the impact of medical affairs, and then, hence, the contribution to that impact that different teams can can have. It doesn't make sense to try to do the impact of field medical as an example if you don't know what you're trying to make an impact on.
So she works with medical affairs first, and then works with the departments to say, how do you contribute to that success? The second is I think that, there's this challenge around harnessing technologies that were really originally built for commercial. Right? It's always funny to me when I start working with a team and they say, oh, we can't do that. That's commercial. Like, well, hold on a sec. You use PowerPoint. Yeah. They use PowerPoint. Yep. You have different content.
Yeah. You can still use the same tool. Right? So when we, you know, talk about, you know, whatever, omnichannel, next best, CRM, all of these technologies, they're really powerful. They're really good. But because we haven't had somebody, ahead of implementation defining how is this going to make medical's mission easier to accomplish, By the time it gets to us, it's usually configured poorly. Right? It becomes just administrative burden versus something that helps.
So I think that's that second one. And the third is I think there's this mindset change happening within medical affairs. And that, you know, for years, I've just heard people say, hey. Our job is to build a relationship and share data. Build relationships, share data. What I'm seeing people migrate to is my job is to change the mindsets of the medical communities that I work in. And it's not just me arguing it.
I need the data, and I need the publications, and I need the grant, and I need all the things that medical does to do it. But it's no longer enough to say I shared the data with them. Mhmm. It's how is the mindset shifted, and hence, those mindset shift will change how practice occurs. Lot to unpack there. Let me start with shout out to my buddy, Linda Traylor, because I should have mentioned her sooner. That's actually how we met. So I I have to apologize to Linda for not mentioning her sooner.
And, guys, like, when I say genius, like medical affairs, genius, Linden Scott worked together and she's a friend of this show. She's been on this podcast. So Google, the episode with Linda trailer because she's amazing. So shout out to Linda second.
You know, it's funny how you mentioned, like, whenever we go to all these medical affairs conferences and congresses, and it's no matter which one you go to since the beginning of time of medical affairs, there's always at least 1 or 10 topics related around the value of medical affairs. What, you know, how do you quantify the value of medical affairs and the value proposition? Like, that's the big thing.
You just explained why it's so important for there to be a medical excellence department because it is in part responsible for showing the value because it's not quantifiable. There's no sales that, you know, that's attached to it. So the thing that now becomes a challenge, I from my perspective in being a spectator, I'm a spectator. You're on the field. You're you're doing this.
And as a spectator and as as a student of the game of medical affairs, what I see is that it's becoming very difficult to keep up with the trends. So how do you keep up with Omnichannel and, like, you know, all these trends that are happening to bring medical affairs to the next level? How are you keeping up with all that? Yeah. So here's here's what I tell my team. And I think it's true for every medical excellence function. Okay? Medical affairs is getting better. Right?
Every year, medical directors are getting more capable. They're, you know, using data in different ways. They, their mindsets are shifting. Right? Medical affairs is getting better year over year over year. Every medical director, every MSL, every field medical director. In order for medical excellence to be a valued partner to contribute, they need to be growing at twice the speed of the rest of medical affairs, or else they'll become irrelevant immediately.
Mhmm. And so a lot of it is making sure that you have time to learn and develop and have a system in place for doing that. And so, when I look at, you know, medical excellence teams, the best ones have specialization. They have somebody who's a genius at building capabilities. They have somebody who's a true techie, not the techie who waits for Veeva to come and say, here's our new release. Right? They're the ones who, every quarter, have looked at the releases of all of their competitors.
And it's not that they're gonna change tools. They're looking for the best and saying, here's what I want to do. Right? These are the people who, whether you're allowed to or not on your work computer, on your personal computer, you've used chat g p t. Right? Like, you just are techie. Right? And you've got somebody who's just so passionate about support, right, that is just a student of setting up transparency systems and workflow and and call centers and, like, taking work off of people.
Right? You need specialty. The the teams that struggle are the ones that hire generalists. Right? Medical affairs generalists who, now they're in this spot, but they never develop a specialty in one of those areas. So anybody on the call who who wants to get into medical excellence and you get passionate about being the machine that builds the machine, figure out which one of those areas is, like, your area of genius and and get into it. Go out. Right?
But you need to have passion around it, or else you you won't be able to force yourself to do it. And let me tell you why that's such great advice. Because I know there's a lot of people that are listening to this right now that are in medical affairs. Maybe you're an MSL. Maybe you're in an in house role, and you're looking for that next thing. You're looking for that next step. It might be in medical excellence, and it might be in one of these areas that Scott is talking about.
So if you create a niche for yourself expertise, and without getting too far into the weeds, but if you become the expert, let's just say in Veeva, I don't know, or something on the technical side, technical tools tools or, you know, or AI or whatever it might be. Now you're building up a resume where you could say, okay. I've I've done these things in medical affairs. I've been in MSL. I've been in med info or whatever, medical writing. And I have this other thing.
And because of that, all those things combined make me a good fit for this position that's now available in medical affairs. And the reason I mentioned that is because so many times people come to me and they're like, Tom, I wanna do something other than being an MSR. I wanna do something other than being, you know, an associate director or director in, this medical affairs capacity. This is this could very well be the next thing for you. So, Scott, thank you for even mentioning that.
I think that's important. Yeah. It it also brings me to this idea of since there's so many facets to this piece, what what are you seeing as as what's trending right now? What's most relevant? What's, like, the hottest thing inside the thing? Yeah. So I guess there there's 3. The first is to really look at the true measures of impact. Right? And this is something if anybody reaches out to Linda, she'll she'll walk you through.
But, you know, really moving into how can you have clinic, clinical practice changing conversations. Mhmm. Right? And and actually back it out. Because things like like like most teams, they'll jump right into safety and efficacy data discussions all day. Here's my data. Here's my data. Here's my data.
But if nobody's even considering that yet because they haven't agreed that there's an unmet need, that they haven't aligned, that there's some potentially better clinical outcome than whatever standard is today, they don't understand, your class of treatment or your mechanism of action. Like like, all of that are, like, real serious impact outcomes that is in medical affairs remit that you can measure. Like like, you can measure.
Did somebody change from measuring a clinical outcome one way to another based on the tests they order? Right? You can actually show that impact. So that would be number 1. Number 2 is I think that all of this digital omnichannel stuff, it's real. Right? And, you know, I think that as as medical starts to get their hands on it, right, and it stops happening to them and they start to say, oh, I've got this tool. I could do something with it.
All of those things are designed to increase the personal, individual impact that a person can have. Right? And so it's about, helping them move beyond these kind of point in time interactions, and being kind of this ongoing provider of value to the medical community. So it's not just when I talk to you in the office or call you on the phone. It's, you're getting my portal. You're getting my content. You're seeing my stuff on social media.
It might not be me posting it, but I'm the conveyor of value, to the medical community. And the third one is really around this kind of new way of working. Mhmm. Right? We can't talk about trends and patterns to today without talking about AI. Right? And, you know, whether it was the invention of the Internet or the invention of Google, now AI, it's all about changing the way we work.
And it's amazing to me, as as we've implemented AI within medical affairs, you can take what used to take 6 or 7 people to do something and give the power of all of that productivity, all that value to one person. Mhmm. And and I see medical affairs really, starting to leverage it. And and, you know, it's such a cool time to be in medical because we have so much value that we can provide, but it's all locked and stuck in kind of these old ways of working.
That if if medical excellence can help us unlock it, so that we can be a provider of value all the time, 247, we're just it's gonna be an amazing industry, amazing field to be in. Yeah. And well, obviously, it already is, but it's just gonna get better. I I I totally I totally agree with that. But and here's the big question. How does it get better, and what does the future look like? What's what's next for medical affairs? So we've heard the term trusted partner forever.
Mhmm. That's kind of this this altruistic goal that we have. Yet a lot of the ways we go about delivering that process is for our benefit, not for the benefit of the people we're trying to provide value to. Mhmm. And so if, one, we are clear, here's the journey that the medical community is going through. Not what we want them to go through, but they're going through. Right. And we go and meet them there.
2, we provide them meaningful content in the moment they need it so that they can make decisions on the spot, that's gonna be what what what we're gonna be heading to. Right? I see a world where, we don't need to wait 3 months for the next interaction, the next engagement, the next opportunity to engage. Somebody is going to be engaging in the moment, and they're gonna either do it with you, or they're gonna do it with doctor Google, or they're gonna do it with chat GPT.
But they're not gonna wait anymore. They're not gonna wait the 3 months to be on your schedule because that's the next time you happen to be coming down that street. So I think that medical affairs can place themselves right in the middle of that, and the work we do can feed these other channels, these other systems. Right? But I think that we need to start thinking of ourselves as the value providers, not as the ones always doing the engagement. I love it.
And I'll tell you, just, you know, everything that we're talking about right now and I've said this before a 1000000 times on this podcast. I'm gonna say it again. There's no there's never been a better time to be in medical affairs. Right? I mean, there's just there's so much going on. There's so much opportunity. There's such a bright future. Do you agree? I do. You know, people are afraid, like, AI will take our jobs. Right? It's not. Right?
We still need I mean, if all it took to change behavior and and have an impact was knowledge, the self help industry would be doing a lot better. Right? You would read one book, and your life would be logically better. But, no, you need people. Right? You need your tribe. You need your mentors. You need your guides, and and medical affairs is in the position to to be that within the medical community. Yep. And thank god for that.
Well, guys, I told you I told you in the beginning how freaking smart and awesome Scott was and is, and he did not disappoint. Scott, thank you for being here, for sharing all of your wisdom. You're a genius. And I appreciate, I appreciate you coming on and taking time. And and I appreciate all you guys. Thank you for joining us every week and for sharing the show and for making it what it is. I appreciate you all, and we'll see you next time. Thanks again, Scott. Bye now.
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