Traditional Real World Data (RWD) report deliverables typically come in the form of detailed PDFs or slide decks built specifically to address a client's stated key business questions. These formats can be a very convenient way of aggregating and sharing analytic results because their familiarity makes it easy to socialize throughout the organization.

But static reports in the form of PDFs or slide decks also have some major limitations. Healthcare is a dynamic environment – prescribing preferences, disease incidence, treatment tools and trends, the marketplace itself, these are all changing all the time. So, wouldn’t it make sense if healthcare reports were dynamic too?

Shift to Dynamic Reporting

In a recent podcast episode, Beyond Static Reporting, Andy Burch, Associate Product & Strategy Director for AI/Machine Learning at IQVIA said this question was a driving factor in a planned shift to dynamic reporting – reports that also have dynamic flexibility allowing different users to iteratively drill into the data and continually gain instant answers to new questions.

With dynamic reports you can also look at different time periods. For example, Burch pointed out: “you may want to understand the trends that are opening in the previous months, the late years, the early years.” Dynamic reporting offers the temporal flexibility that you may not know you need up front, but the analysis reveals as important later.

Built to Answer New Questions

In that same interview, Brian Smith, an AI Solutions Delivery Consultant with IQIVA, noted that static reports often raise new questions and can leave the client wanting more answers. Static reports can answer many questions, but only through a fixed lens, e.g., representing a certain time and a certain focus.

Smith observed “a key limitation of static reporting, there's really no ability to pivot or to flex the analysis to address questions that arise from these initial results.” This short-coming can lead to re-work on a project, delays in reporting or, worst of all – results that really don't meet the client's needs or address their underlying questions.

The challenge is that all the problems aren’t necessarily known at the start of a project, they show up after you start to examine the initial results. Smith explained “any good project is always going to generate new questions, and it's the answers to these incremental questions, the secondary or tertiary insights, that may end up being the most valuable to the client.” And this is an area where dynamic reports are vastly superior.

Dynamic reporting said Burch, can adapt to needs as they change and scale across multiple markets or multiple disease areas.

Harnessing Machine Learning, Automation

Burch described the development of IQVIA’s dynamic reporting as starting with a wish list of ideal elements based on experience of working with different kinds of reporting platforms technologies. He said the aim was to utilize the latest technology available such as AI and machine learning (ML) and then ”automate a way to bring the data to an easy to digest user interface, which our clients can log in to find the answers that they need on the fly.”

Burch also highlighted another issue around static deliverables: despite their limitations they can take a long time to prepare. So, another goal was to build “something that could deliver insights quickly, at scale, and that could be repeated.”

Repeatable Processes

The ability to automate repeated processes is another strength of dynamic reports. For example, automated machine learning combined with dynamic delivery for approved physician targeting could find physicians that match certain criteria, and then continue finding them as time goes by.

Smith said a machine learning model could also be used to find patients that are likely to initiate a treatment of interest based on their past medical history. And the model itself can evolve and improve by being updated with new data as it becomes available.

“If you integrate that into a dynamic platform setting, the model can be refreshed in an automated fashion and the predicted patients can then be linked to physicians of interest… using client customized business rules,” said Smith.

Accelerated Speed to Insight

By giving brand teams access to data, they can quickly test and iterate through multiple different hypotheses about their market without incurring the time or cost limitations that are associated with a static deliverable.

For example, said Burch, if someone want to understand how many patients are in a specific market, what are their characteristics, which patients have not the been diagnosed it, who is going to be predicted to change a therapy, a dynamic delivery will allow them to find these answers in different ways and track the changes through automated refreshes.

Creating a Data-Driven Culture

Smith points out that because dynamic reports provide the power to find and share insights easily through a flexible platform, this also helps to foster a data-driven culture – something that many organizations are striving for.

“In the past brand teams and analytics teams might have more of a transactional relationship, so the brand team would ask a question and the analytics team would return an answer. This can be very slow and inefficient back and forth,” said Smith.

Removing these access barriers between the teams helps them work more closely by sharing a common understanding of brand challenges. When anyone can ask and answer questions, it also connects the team.

Democratizing Data Insights

Different teams often require different answers, but the benefit of a shared system that multiple users can gain access to these automated data solutions with a simple user interface allows these teams bridge the gap and share information freely without performing manual queries to get what they need.

While a static platform solution can help break down communication silos by empowering non-analysts to become involved in the data exploration process, and to follow their own questions and develop new insights from their point of view. This not only enhances their understanding of brand challenges, Smith noted that also “it's democratizing data” with the result being improved collaborative teamwork and “ultimately better-informed questions, faster cycle time with analytics and deeper insights.” When everyone contributes to asking questions, everyone becomes more engaged in finding answers.

Suitable for All Types of Healthcare Research

Smith emphasized dynamic reports are suitable not just for brand teams, but also for medical affairs, and medical technology teams – anyone who can benefit from faster, flexible speed to insight.

Want to know more? You can hear the podcast episode here. Or please contact us for a demonstration and to see how dynamic reports and IQVIA’s AIML Solutions Suite can ensure you are getting the most from your data and your reporting.