Medical affairs teams can track attendance at congresses, Medical Science Liaisons (MSL) interactions, publication engagement, and participation in continuing medical education. And while those measures help establish whether scientific exchange reached its intended audience, they give way to a harder question: what signals of change can teams observe afterward – especially while engagement is still fresh?
To understand medical affairs effectiveness beyond engagement, teams need additional evidence about what happens next. Changes in terminology activity may offer one useful lens, helping teams identify concepts to investigate and areas where education may need reinforcement.
What engagement metrics leave unanswered
Did the clinical conversation actually change?
The scale of accredited education makes this question worth examining. ACCME’s 2025 data report announcement documents more than 242,000 activities and 57.5 million learner interactions. Alongside existing outcome measures, terminology activity offers another perspective to explore.
A clinician may attend a congress presentation, speak with an MSL, read a publication, or participate in a continuing medical education (CME) activity. Traditional metrics can tell medical affairs that the interaction occurred, helping teams understand participation and engagement. But they don’t necessarily show whether activity around the clinical concepts discussed changed afterward.
Following a guideline update, for example, did activity around newly introduced concepts increase? Did more specific disease subtypes gain traction? Where did those changes appear, and did they persist?
Answering those questions could help teams decide which concepts warrant further investigation and where additional scientific exchange may be useful.
What terminology activity can add to medical affairs effectiveness
How clinicians describe disease is constantly evolving.
New research introduces biomarkers and mechanisms. Guidelines change diagnostic criteria. Previously broad disease categories become more specific. New terminology emerges as scientific understanding advances.
Changes in activity around those terms can help teams observe which clinical concepts are gaining traction, where activity is changing, and whether those patterns continue over time.
IMO Clinician Activity Signals provides near-real-time visibility into aggregated terminology activity across IMO Health-enabled clinical workflows.
That creates an opportunity for medical affairs teams to establish a baseline and examine changes around a scientific or educational initiative. Following a congress, publication, guideline update, or educational program, teams could explore:
- Concept lift: Did activity around the relevant clinical concepts change relative to a defined baseline?
- Terminology adoption: Did newly introduced or more specific terminology begin appearing more frequently?
- Geographic response: Where were changes observed, and where was activity relatively unchanged?
- Persistence: Did the observed change continue beyond the initial measurement period?
How to interpret changes around an educational initiative
A useful measurement plan starts before the initiative. Teams can define the clinical concepts they want to examine, establish a baseline, and choose an observation window that fits the question they are trying to answer.
For example, a team preparing education around an updated disease classification could identify the relevant terminology in advance. After the initiative, it could examine whether activity around those concepts changed and whether the pattern persisted. This would provide a starting point for further investigation, rather than a conclusion about what clinicians learned or how they treated patients.
Importantly, observing a change after an initiative does not, on its own, establish that the initiative caused the change. Other publications, educational activities, guideline changes, or shifts in clinical activity may influence the same signal.
Terminology activity should therefore be interpreted alongside engagement data and other evidence. Together, those sources can help teams ask more focused questions about what they need to understand next.
From observed signals to the next action
IMO Clinician Activity Signals adds another layer of intelligence to existing medical affairs measurement.
By comparing activity before and after an initiative, examining differences across geographies, and tracking changes over time, teams can identify patterns that warrant a closer look. Those patterns can help inform follow-up questions, educational planning, and discussions about where field medical teams should focus.
The next questions become more specific:
- Which concepts may require further explanation or reinforcement?
- Where is newer terminology gaining traction?
- Where does relatively unchanged activity warrant further investigation?
- Which signals should teams examine alongside other evidence before deciding how to respond?
For medical affairs, the opportunity extends beyond demonstrating that scientific exchange happened. It is to build a more informed view of the clinical activity observed afterward – and use that evidence to guide the next question or educational priority.
Reach establishes whom an initiative connected with. Terminology activity can help teams decide what to investigate next.
