Survey of Medical Liaison Practices No. 2: Assessing Training Techniques and Demonstrating Value of Medical Liaisons

Abstract

In an effort to assess medical liaison trends across the pharmaceutical industry, a survey of medical liaison managers was previously administered and published. The intent of the initial survey was to identify overall approaches used by pharmaceutical companies in defining and managing the medical liaison role. We conducted this follow-up survey to focus on areas identified by the initial survey participants as major challenges. The current survey focused on developing and conducting medical liaison training, as well as demonstrating and communicating the value of medical liaison programs. The survey was sent to approximately 1,275 recipients with instructions requesting that the survey was to be completed only by managers or directors of medical liaison programs. The survey results indicated the following: There is a broad range of new hire and experienced medical liaison training practices, training of newly hired medical liaison differs from that of experienced medical liaisons, and many innovative practices are used to overcome the challenge of demonstrating the value of a medical liaison.