How To Use Pharmaceutical Companies Medical Information Departments

Following the UKMI survey of the quality & usefulness of pharmaceutical companies’ medical information departments early in 2015, the UKMI Clinical Governance working group reviewed the results and in conjunction with the Pharmaceutical Information and Pharmacovigilance Association (PIPA) have come up with a list of things to think about and do when MI pharmacists/technicians have to contact a company with an enquiry.

  • Introduce yourself and state where you are calling from. If you are not asked for your contact details, provide them so they can be recorded and you can be contacted again. If you don’t work full time or if you work in multiple locations it helps if you can also provide details of the most convenient times for you to be contacted.
  • Be clear what your question is and provide any background information that will help the company provide the best answer possible. Woolly, poorly worded questions will result in answers that don’t help you with your enquiry.
  • Let them know if the enquiry relates to a specific patient or patients and the reason for the enquiry or if it is purely for administration work (such as updates to your data bases).
  • If you are using a product that has multiple indications, and it is a patient specific enquiry, please state the indication you are using the product for. This will help narrow searches and provide a more relevant answer.
  • Be clear about when you need the answer by and ask the company if they are able to meet the deadline. If they say no, ask when you can expect an answer.
  • Like NHS MI centres, the company may need some time to get the information together – ask if they know how long this will be. Be reasonable with your expectation and be prepared to compromise.
  • If you have already looked in a number of resources, tell the company. This could avoid them only looking in the same places that you have. If you want them to look in certain places e.g. their own data on file, ask them to do so.
  • If you need a written response, state this when you first make your enquiry, not when you are given a verbal answer. The more notice you can give the company, the more likely they will be to respond in a timely manner.
  • Please note that companies are able to provide information to help with decisions for how patients are going to be treated. A company cannot make decisions for HCPs.
  • Ask who you are speaking to so if you have to get back to the company, you can ask to speak to the same person again. Ask for a reference number for your enquiry because often someone else in the team can handle an enquiry in the absence of the person you spoke to.
  • If you have constructive feedback following poor service or a poor response, contact the company and ask to speak to the medical information manager. If they don’t know we’re not satisfied, things won’t change in the future.

Katie Smith, East Anglia Medicines Information Service, March 2016