MedInfoSys®: Responses

As enquiries can be received as telephone calls, e-mails, letters, etc, it is equally important that replies can be made in suitable ways, quickly and effectively:

• Verbally
• As a written, physical document (e.g. a letter or fax)
• As a written, electronic communication (e.g. an e-mail)
• Combinations of the above (e.g. a letter sent by e-mail)

MedInfoSys® allows users to collate all necessary information into a Response – whether that is information about the enquirer, the enquiry itself, standard letters that address the question, details of the Response author or even a rep involved in the case…

Where something needs to be written, MedInfoSys® allows users to collate all necessary information into a Response – whether that is information about the enquirer, the enquiry itself, standard letters that address the question, details of the Response author or even a rep involved in the case – using templates maintained by system administrators to dictate the appearance and layout of outgoing communications, e.g.

• The correct paper size, margins and fonts are used.
• Corporate logos and footers are included for e-mailed Responses.
• It is possible to print out on corporate stationery for physical sending.

Responses can be sent just to the original enquirer, or a rep can be copied-in (or notified that a Response has been made, if it is not appropriate for the rep to see the correspondence – e.g. for off-label indication enquiries).  Supporting reference materials can also be specified (e.g. articles referenced in the endnotes of a letter); these can either be stored within MedInfoSys®, referenced in external systems or a mixture of the two.

Once assembled in this way, several things then become possible with the Response:

• The user can edit it in Word from within the system (i.e. there are no local copies to maintain).
• If the relevant option is enabled, the Response can be passed to a colleague for approval before sending – depending on the configuration of this option, this review may be mandatory in some cases.
• Once approved, the actual sending of the Response can be optionally delegated to a colleague (e.g. to a secretary).
• Again, if the relevant option is enabled, the Response and the Enquiry can be duplicated in full – e.g. if answering the same query from many people received at a conference or symposium.

At the point of dispatching the response, the user is prompted with a summary of what needs to be done to complete the assembly of the full “response package” (e.g. attachment of external reference materials, correction of any errors in email addressing, printing, etc).  As implied above, MedInfoSys® integrates with corporate e-mail systems (or NIP’s can be used), which enables this “response package” to be automatically sent by e-mail; a similar optional feature exists for sending by fax when the customer has a corporate fax gateway.

Any number of responses can be generated to an enquiry (to allow, for example, for interim responses) and are stored with that enquiry, as well as being searchable in their own right.

Finally, once dispatched, response attachments are converted to PDF for data integrity purposes.