Medical affairs insights are only useful when someone can find them later and show what changed because of them. A line that says “HCP positive, send data” cannot be themed, routed, or closed. This is how to judge a medical insights platform before the demo starts.
A medical insights platform is the system Medical Affairs uses to collect what people learn from doctors, payers, patients, and investigators, then keep that learning on a record someone can act on.
Medical affairs insights are not the same thing as a call note. The MAPS Insights Focus Area Working Group defines an insight as new information, an understanding, or a perspective that may identify a gap, inform strategy, confirm a view the company already holds, and may result in an action. A raw note is the input. The insight is what survives once it has a source, a theme, and a next step.
That distinction is the whole evaluation. If the software only stores the sentence the MSL typed, it is a notebook. If it can show whether the sentence was usable, where the same theme is showing up, and whether anyone closed the follow-up, it is a medical insights platform.
MAPS ran two member surveys in early 2020 and published the findings in the 2022 white paper Building Medical Insights. Three results matter when you are buying software.
In 47% of organizations in the second survey, insights from different sources were not brought together. Only 26% of respondents systematically collected insights from the scientific literature. About a quarter collected them from social media. Field activity was the default.
The same paper describes the harder failure. Teams generate notes at the customer interface, and the people setting strategy never get a clean feedback loop. Reports get written without a decision about when they will be used.
A platform does not fix a team that has no owner for the theme and no meeting where a decision is made. Ask the vendor to show the operating routine, not only the capture screen. Who reads the themes, how often, and what decision changed last quarter.
Score every vendor on the same list, including TikaMobile. We wrote this list, and it reflects how we built TikaInsights. Hold us to it the same way.
| Question | What a usable answer looks like |
|---|---|
| Is the note usable while it is being written? | The system scores the insight, names the gap, and suggests a rewrite. The author can keep their own wording. It also offers a question for the next conversation with that HCP. |
| Do the sources land on one record? | Advisory boards, field and KOL interactions, congresses, publications, dinner and speaker programs, and medical information requests can all be entered, or brought in from the system that already holds them. |
| Can someone without a CRM seat contribute? | A partner enters the insight, or a Medical Affairs owner enters it for them. A missing seat is not why the comment disappears. |
| What happens on save? | Sentiment, theme tags, and a recommended next step are added. If the note may be an adverse event or a product quality complaint, it is flagged. A person still makes the medical judgment. |
| Is the follow-up verified? | The action has an owner, a due date, a topic, and a priority. The owner can mark it complete. A manager verifies that on the same record. A self-declared done is not the close. |
| Does it have to replace the CRM? | It can run on its own, or beside the CRM the company already uses. Notes that already sit in Veeva CRM can come across. Replacing that CRM is a different project. |
Ask them to do it on one insight, live. Start with a vague sentence. End on a record that has a theme, an owner, and a due date. If the demo jumps from a dashboard back to a slide, you have not seen the product.
Two checks sit beside that list. MAPS is explicit that adverse-event reporting, privacy, and direct patient engagement have to be settled with Compliance before insights work starts, especially if social listening is in scope. And the record should be the same on web, iPad, iPhone, and Android, with role and territory controls. A mobile app that captures a lighter, ungoverned note creates a second system.
See the loop on one insight. TikaInsights coaches the note at capture, tags the theme on save, and keeps the action on the same record until a manager verifies it. Book a demo.
A medical affairs CRM is where the relationship and the scientific exchange live. It is the right system for who was seen and what was discussed. A separate finding in the same paper: almost half of respondents, again 47%, store medical insights in a CRM. MAPS says those systems tend to be oriented toward the external stakeholders the team meets. That 47% is not the integration figure above.
Use the CRM for the interaction. Use the insights platform for the learning that has to leave that interaction and reach a decision. Some teams will want both in one stack. Some will keep the CRM they have and add the insights layer beside it. Either choice is legitimate. Buying a second notebook is not.
TikaInsights is medical insights management software for Medical Affairs. It is not the MSL CRM, and it does not answer medical information requests. Those are TikaMSL and TikaMedInfo. Inquiry patterns from medical information can still be carried into the same analysis.
Insight Coach runs while the contributor is writing, and it can run later on an older record. It gives a quality score, names specific gaps, suggests a rewrite, and offers probing questions for the next HCP conversation. The contributor accepts the suggestion or keeps their own words.
The record can hold an insight from an advisory board, a field interaction, a congress, a program, a publication, or a medical information request. Context stays on it: HCP, product, topic, disease state, strategic theme, event, team, priority, and source. A cross-functional partner can enter an insight, or Medical Affairs can enter it for them.
On save, the system adds sentiment, theme tags, a recommended next step, and flags for a possible adverse event, product quality complaint, or compliance issue. Leaders can look at patterns by team, product, and period. That is structure. It is not a substitute for medical review.
An action is then assigned with an owner, a due date, a topic, and a priority. Upcoming Actions sorts what is overdue, due this week, due this month, and high priority. The owner marks the work complete. A manager verifies it. Leadership can see the insight-to-action rate, response time, and what is still open. TikaMobile doesn’t publish a benchmark for that rate. It reflects your team’s own records.
It runs on web, iPad, iPhone, and Android. It can be deployed on its own or with TikaMSL. It can bring insights in from systems that already hold them, including Veeva CRM. It does not replace Veeva, and importing from Veeva CRM needs configuration.
If you want the field-note version of this, the capture steps after a KOL meeting are here: how teams capture medical insights after a KOL meeting. The definition of a medical insight is in the glossary.
Take the six questions into the demo and write yes or no while the vendor is still on the screen. A yes that depends on a services project, a custom object, or a report someone will build later is a no for this decision.
Then look at your own operating routine. If nobody owns the theme, the software will collect notes and the quarterly pack will look the same. Settle adverse-event reporting and privacy with Compliance first. Pick the system that can sit beside the CRM you already run, unless you have a separate reason to change that CRM.
See TikaInsights on one insight, from the sentence to a verified action.
A medical insights platform collects what Medical Affairs learns from external experts and keeps it on a record that can be themed and acted on. A call note without a source, a theme, and a next step is not yet an insight.
Medical affairs insights are observations from an HCP, payer, patient, or investigator that can be validated and used in a scientific or medical decision. MAPS describes an insight as information that may identify a gap, inform strategy, confirm a view, and result in an action.
A CRM holds the relationship and the interaction. An insights platform holds the learning that has to reach a decision, including learning that did not come from a field visit. Many companies keep both.
Someone owns the next action, it has a due date, and a manager verifies that it was completed. A count of notes logged does not show whether anything changed.
It can. TikaInsights can bring in insights that already live in Veeva CRM, and it can also run on its own. Bringing notes across is not the same thing as replacing the CRM, and it is not automatic.