Pharmaceutical companies may have embraced emergent technologies quicker than others, but are they using them to their full potential?

Driven by their strong R&D roots, 55% of pharma leaders utilized technology to shift towards a digital ecosystem. ¹ However, while these enhancements are important to modernize organizations as traditional selling models falter, investment in Quality Assurance (QA) programs remains lacking despite their importance in maintaining a competitive edge in a crowded industry.

In the increasingly competitive and costly market, leveraging technology like robotic process automation (RPA), AI, bots, and online dashboards for QA can offer pharma brands a significant edge, ensuring faster and safer product delivery to market.

What Does “Smart” Quality Assurance Have to Offer Pharma Brands?

Bringing any medication or vaccine to market is a demanding task, even before taking into account possible supply chain disruptions. This makes it even more important to develop robust, intelligent QA programs.

Improved Data Entry

All pharma brands audit and record their data for privacy, regulatory, and analytical purposes, but with the immense amount and variety of information they receive each day, it often is a laborious and difficult process.

RPA tools have helped revolutionize this area. While not outright replacing manual entry, this technology automates the majority tedious data entry with intelligent bots, freeing employees to focus on higher-level QA tasks. Combined with digital portals to store this data, RPA tools ensure faster, more accurate results that help provide a comprehensive view of company performance.

Better Insights and Analytics

A side effect of data siloing across departments, pharma brands are often unable to extract actionable insights, with over half struggling to gain a clear overview of their performance without external help. ²

By centralizing this data through QA processes, employees can gain a real-time view of trends, enabling quicker identification of issues like adverse events or quality concerns. This not only saves organizations millions annually, but also helps accelerate compliance and product delivery.

Understand Patients and Healthcare Providers

Improved analytics not only enhance feedback on products but also helps address another challenge the pharma industry faces: delivering a consistent customer experience.

With only 16% of physicians believing pharma companies understand their needs, the industry has struggled with customer experience due to limited quality assurance in outward client-facing interactions. ³

Through AI technology like chatbots, pharmaceutical brands can provide human-like, 24/7 support, assist with training support agents, and reduce escalations in contact centers. Additionally, RPA tools can track quality issues, monitor customer reports, and alert employees to potential adverse events when they arise.

eClerx Has the Prescription for Your Quality Assurance Success

Just like how it was hard for many businesses to make the leap to virtual workspaces, knowing how and when to leverage digital solutions in a QA program can be daunting.

One of our pharmaceutical clients successfully shifted to a virtual workspace over the COVID-19 pandemic, but sought out the help of eClerx to help build a more efficient QA program.

“Many pharmaceutical companies are unfamiliar with leveraging technology like automation into their QA approach,” said Kimberley Dye, Vice President of Customer Experience Solutions at eClerx. “So collaborating with a company like eClerx that has the domain expertise and understanding of business needs in the industry is incredibly useful to them.”

Early in the partnership, Kimberley identified siloed data across nine business units, hindering the client’s awareness of quality issues. To circumvent this, her team introduced a hybrid QA program via an online portal that enabling both manual and future automated evaluations. Within six months, the portal help centralize the client’s data, logging over 19,000 inbound and outbound evaluations and paving the way for better quality insights. Kimberley’s team also helped to identify and address over 11 quality gaps, such as website issues and escalated cases, helping boost the client’s CSAT by 4%.

Looking ahead, Kimberley and her team plan to enhance the client’s QA processes for their inbound and outbound operations. Additionally, they are looking to incorporate tools like Roboworx, eClerx’s proprietary RPA solution, to further streamline evaluations and save employees time, while unlocking new insights for quality improvement.

Leverage the Best of Today’s Technology with eClerx

After years of industry disruption, pharmaceutical brands large and small are struggling to maximize efficiency. With a full suite of automation solutions and a team of longtime industry experts, eClerx can start your company on the road to success.

Click below to get in touch with us and learn more about how our products and services can help optimize your organization.

References

1. Albrecht, Bjourn, et al. “Top Ten Observations from 2022 in Life Sciences Digital and Analytics.” McKinsey & Company, McKinsey & Company, 31 Jan. 2023.
2. Solbach, Thomas, et al. “Customer-Led Transformation in Pharma: Rise of the Customer Experience.” PwC, 1 Jan. 2021.
3. Gaymon, Andrea, and Brian Cunningham. “Insights Into Pharma Market Trends and HCP Channel Preferences.” Digital Health Coalition – Moving Innovation Forward, 2 Oct. 2023.