Do you feel overworked? Do issues seem to constantly appear on an account? Is it hard to get a few hours of time to work and concentrate on that important deliverable that needs your creative touch or review? There are many factors that we cannot control. However, as clinical team members (especially, leaders and managers), we can create ways to make our jobs and our colleagues’ jobs much easier and more effective. I will identify some common obstacles a medical/clinical team likely faces in the med comms agency sector. How can we also brainstorm solutions and promote good practices that can help improve a team’s efficiency?

Lack of Resources:

Poor work-life balance stems from diminishing resources available to the clinical team. It is understandable that gaps in employment and cost reductions impact the ability to optimally staff any department. However, failure to address understaffing from a clinical standpoint can eventually lead to reduction in quality of deliverables due to less reviews by senior managers, less time dedicated to creative thinking and content creation, and less opportunities for writers to grow and develop. Not to mention, the scramble to adequately find coverage for extended time-off. Ultimately, I have seen this adversely impact client relations.

One way to fill in gaps is to bring in freelancers or utilize outside agencies. Freelancers can provide either temporary or long-term solutions, depending on the need of the agency — perhaps you need help on a specific one-time project or you anticipate additional work from a client for the last fiscal quarter. Additionally, I have seen an agency creativity use employees (including writers) from different countries and/or different time zones. This flexibility can ensure work is managed even outside of standard operating hours.

Structuring of Teams:

There are different ways to organize individuals across the overall clinical team. Accounts typically follow a structure of a senior or SVP level clinical leader followed by a mid-level manager or director and rounded out by a writer (including interns and fellows, if applicable). In many cases, each individual works on multiple accounts and either reports to or oversees different colleagues. This approach helps with flexibility but may also hinder continuity.

I experienced one structural approach that aimed to group 5-6 clinical team members of different levels together across a grouping of accounts. Ideally, this would allow each team to gain an understanding and should also help manage time-off and coverage.

Adherence to SOP:

Internal guidelines and SOP are in place to ensure a smooth work stream. However, particularly from a clinical standpoint, many of these practices can seem burdensome or unrealistic. For example, meeting urgent deadlines or satisfying requests for client reviews outside of the standard timeline are clearly doable outside of normal practice. On the other hand, it is not uncommon to encounter disregard for SOP anywhere from annotating to routing to internally reviewing. These bad habits can lead to confusion such as version control issues and mistakes in content.

One useful practice that can be implemented across an agency is development and adherence to a RACI tool. This can help designate which teams are responsible for each specific task throughout the entire life of a project. It clarifies SOP and guides each team to be more efficient. From a clinical team perspective, it is important to hold all team members accountable for following SOP as much as possible. I found it useful to have refreshers and reminders during staff meetings. Also, guidelines and documents available in an easy-to-find location on servers should help when one needs to retrieve while working or refer to at any time.

Challenges to Managing Time:

In nearly all positions, proper time management is a key to success. It is essential to the clinical team because we are most often the content creators and primary owners of deliverables. But what keeps us from utilizing our time to the best extent? There are both internal and external factors to consider. Many teams put pressure by adding or requiring an excessive number of meetings and touchpoints. On the other hand, a lack of a proper kickoff early on for a new project and other forms of miscommunication would most certainly adversely affect its efficiency down the line. Internally, clinical staff may face a variety of obstacles such as lack of organization on the individual level and disconnect between team members regarding expectations.

Individually, one useful way to keep organized is using a checklist, especially before sending to a manager for review. Managers can optimize team functionality by setting a recurring checkpoint either daily or weekly to discuss goals and expected work for the near future. To maximize our time, there should be a focus on prioritization of work. This is a skill that is learned through experience, but senior team members and mangers can help writers and less experienced colleagues navigate, if needed. There are also factors out of our control that are difficult to predict but not impossible to prepare for with help of project management and built-in buffers in timelines.

Call to Action:

We can continue to strive to improve our efficiency. Understanding common challenges may help us break out of unproductive cycles and embrace more effective ways of working individually and collectively. Let us commit to excellence!