MDM has received quite a bit of attention in the recent past and we have seen many companies across the LS spectrum adopt and embrace this. The Physicians Payment Sunshite Act has also been a key driver for enterprises to create a master data repository for their HCPs (Health Care Professionals), to ensure that the right spend amounts were being reported against these HCPs. One of the easiest / simplest story lines to get funding for an MDM initiative that I’ve seen has been the classic “This is that way to ensure that the physician J Smith and Joe Smith as well as Joseph Smith are all either the same person or not”.
Several 3rd part Data Stewarding companies have setup eloborate automated+manual systems and processes to figure these out and provide this service on a subscription basis. But the big challenge that LS companies seem to grapple with when it comes to the HCP MDM is not the merge / split up of their leaf level HCP data, but their affiliations or the associated organizations. In fact one of our customers characterized this problem as being an animal that required 3-4 different views (of affiliations) – sales view – which could further breakdown into the incentive comp view based on IMS/WKH data and territory alignment that drives the interactions based view, i.e. how the reps plan their calls and log their interactions. The CaseManagement view – which is where the drugs get shipped to.
Its surprising that although this appears to be a pretty simple problem, of having to present rollups to different groups in different ways – there does not seem to be a single simple/elegant solution to address this. Well, for all those modelers reading this – here seems to be a great market opportunity to capitalize. Get those creative juices flowing …
