EXTERNAL EDUCATION

FOCUS AREA WORKING GROUP

External Education led by Medical Affairs is critical to provide unbiased education to enhance healthcare professional (HCP) knowledge, skills and competencies through funding for independent medical education or industry-led medical education that addresses identified knowledge or competency and performance gaps. The goals of the External Education FAWG are as follows:

Ensure understanding of the current state of external medical education as it relates to the Medical Affairs function, and the needs of Medical Affairs professionals
Raise awareness among Medical Affairs professionals of the value of external medical education in the biopharmaceutical/device industry
Facilitate the evolving role of Medical Affairs professionals in external medical education in response to the changing landscape
Provide tools and solutions to Medical Affairs professionals to help design and execute compliant and impactful external medical education programs

Activities:

We organize External Education workshops for MAPS meetings in the North America, APAC (Asia Pacific – China/Japan), and EMEA (Europe, Middle-East, Asia) regions. We develop original content for webinars, podcasts, eLearning courses and white papers. In addition, the working group will periodically contribute cogent and timely content on the External Education sector for the MAPS publication, Elevate magazine. Most importantly, we will provide a supportive resource for all External Education Medical Affairs Professionals.

Strategic Objectives

Landscape: Ensure understanding of the current state of External Education (EE) as it relates to Medical Affairs (MA) function:
- Communicate ongoing trends and activities in EE
- Assess the needs (opportunities and barriers) of MA Professionals in developing or supporting high quality EE
Position: Enhance the value of Medical Affairs’ External Education within the biopharmaceutical/device industry and with our external stakeholders to ultimately improve patient care:
- Benchmark how organizations are measuring and communicating value of EE
- Identify and share best practices to establish impact measurements that demonstrate ongoing value of lifelong learning to HCPs
Optimize: Drive the evolution of Medical Affairs professionals in External Education in response to the changing landscape:
- Identify core competencies and map to existing learning resources
- Explore opportunities to create a Certificate program for EE MA Professionals
- Equip MA Professionals to confidently communicate the strategic contribution of EE internally and externally
Provide Solutions: Provide a range of approaches and solutions to Medical Affairs professionals to support/design/execute compliant and impactful External Education programs
- Expand engagement with diverse stakeholders by exposing MA professionals to more diverse innovative formats and channels
- Identify and share best practices to establish innovative educational formats that demonstrate ongoing value to learners

LATEST PODCAST EPISODE

Description: In partnership with Medical Communications and Educational Design experts from Open Health, this episode of the MAPS podcast series Elevate details how to position patients as priority in designing and refining internal training.