Elevating Medical Information Beyond the Call Center

Jenny Reid-Young recently joined Inizio Engage to support our revitalized global Medical Information framework by helping our teams partner with our clients more strategically to better support their solutions, improve collaboration, and drive future growth initiatives. As the new leader of Medical Information, with the strategy and planning she has put in place, her vision is to elevate her team beyond a typical call center operation.  

We recently sat down with Jenny to learn more about her background, career, and what inspires her to do the work that she does. For Jenny it’s about customer experience (CX); this passion originates from her own experience with Medical Information services while her mother was ill.  

Jenny shared her story behind this mission for better CX. Jenny lost her mother at a young age to a progressive neurological disorder and realized the lack of medical information and support available at the time. She also had first-hand experience of patient interactions when she joined the industry via contact center where she would talk directly to patients who were searching for information. As a result, Jenny’s goal is to bring real-world experiences to improving Medical Information operations for every single patient.  

In the early 1990’s, Jenny Reid-Young was only 8 years old when her mother diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s and only 18 when she passed away at the young age of 48.   

“At that time, access to information about products, the conditions and patient support, just wasn’t available,” Jenny shared. 

The absence of Medical Information and support for individuals seeking guidance on products for their loved ones, themselves, and the healthcare professionals caring for people like Jenny, her family, and her ailing mother, was the driving force that led her into her current field. 

“This type of support is a critical part of the whole cycle,” she said. 

Jenny Reid-Young, our Global Vice President of Medical Information, started her career in a contact center, much like the ones that our experts staff for our clients, talking to patients, parents, and loved ones of patients with different diseases that were taking medications for their conditions and saw firsthand the impact that it had on the people themselves. 

“The access to information considerably changed their experience even if it was just to listen sometimes,” she said. 

“Every interaction that I had on the phone had so much meaning to it, because in that one interaction you could be making a difference to someone’s life.” 

She recalled a specific time when a pharmaceutical client had made a very large investment in medical information services with the company that she worked for to support a brand-new class of drugs to deal with cystic fibrosis and talking to the patients who were taking the drug was an incredibly emotional and rewarding experience. 

“These patients had life-changing improvements,” she said.  Prior to taking the drug, Jenny had learned quickly that some of these patients faced challenges in performing simple everyday tasks. But after being on the drug, “They could live a functioning life, where they didn’t have that experience prior.” 

Providing vital Medical Information to enhance the customer experience has inspired Jenny Reid-Young since the start of her career early on manning the call center and is one of the driving factors of our medical information services at Inizio Engage.  

Inizio Engage’s Medical Information services provide accurate, balanced, and evaluated information on medications to all stakeholders within the healthcare community, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  Specifically, we provide Adverse Event Intake and Reporting, Product Quality Complain Intake and Reporting, Conference Support, Medical and Technical Information Request Handling, REMs and Patient Registration Support, Compassionate Use Support, Crisis Management, and Clinical Trial Support. As a global company operating in over 21 countries, our medical information teams deliver high-quality, vital, and compliant medical information services across the international markets that clients need and require to support their brands.  

We have global expertise with deep knowledge and understanding of local markets and have proficiency in more than 20 languages. “Which is important because a native speaker will understand why a caller from Germany or Italy will be asking a certain question in a certain way because they understand the healthcare system in that country as well as the culture,” Jenny Reid-Young explained.  

But it’s more than just the typical call center operation that many people might associate with medical information services, Reid-Young explained. 

“It’s about how medical information can be leveraged to support the strategic direction of pharmaceutical companies,” she said. 

For instance, if a large volume of patients is calling and asking questions about a particular product, we can try to figure out if a patient support program is needed to support that product,” Reid-Young said. 

“By proactively offering our perspectives on the services which are in line with their strategy, we actually become a true partner to their business.” 

These services and conversations will be on display on September 27 and 28th at the upcoming Medical Information and Communications Conference in Brussels, Belgium.  Jenny will be joined by her Inizio Engage colleagues, Belen Cainzos, SVP Client Engagement & Solutions, Emily Smith, European Implementation Manager, Medical Affairs and Dr. Silvia Pantze, Senior Pharmacist, Medical Information in Germany.  

Jenny will be showcasing a poster at the event titled, “How implementing effective project governance between supplier and client provides insight to support client strategic direction,” and Jenny and her team will be available to talk with conference attendees at Booth #5. 

Touted as the ultimate gathering for medical information professionals, the conference is going to be packed with insights and inspirations on improving customer experience with pharmaceutical and biotech companies across all touchpoints. 

“I’m super excited to attend this year because this conference is one of the biggest opportunities on the calendar for the leaders and decision makers of medical information to come together and engage on what is happening in the industry and what trends we are seeing,” Reid-Young said. 

Looking ahead to 2024, Reid-Young identified a noticeable trend—patients and their families increasingly seek to exert influence over their healthcare choices, access to information, and the methods of engagement. 

“Data and analytics play a huge part,” Reid-Young said. 

“How do we leverage technology based on what their needs are and maintain engagement with a client’s customer base is also becoming more important to consider,” she added. 

Reid-Young urged attention to the future, recalling her family’s struggle to access information in the early 1990s. She concluded, “Having witnessed the evolution of the healthcare industry over the past two decades, I’m even more motivated to contemplate what the next 5, 10, 15, or 20 years may bring.”