AI in Field Medical: better documentation, better insights?

EDGE MEDICAL LIBRARY

AI in Field Medical: better documentation, better insights?

Hello,

We’ve added the RAPID trial to the Edge Medical Library, with a practical summary, infographic and implications for Medical Affairs teams.

Published in Pharmaceutical Medicine, this randomised crossover pilot involved 27 MSLs across six Amgen Asia-Pacific affiliates. Each participant used AI-supported voice-to-text and existing manual CRM entry for four weeks each.

MSLs dictated their own notes after HCP interactions, checked the transcript and used Microsoft Copilot to structure the verified content. HCP conversations were not recorded live.

What did the study find?

Better documentation experience. Satisfaction improved from 2.54 to 3.30 on a five-point scale (p = 0.0114), with consistent support for reduced perceived cognitive load and improved insight structuring.

No demonstrated improvement in insight quality. Expert-rated quality and documented interaction counts did not significantly differ. Higher perceived speed also did not establish faster actual CRM entry.

Local language matters. Japanese and Korean transcription, mixed-language speech and scientific terminology presented implementation challenges.

What this means for Medical Affairs

Our interpretation is to assess documentation experience, operational performance and insight quality separately:

Field Medical: Support documentation while retaining MSL review, scientific interpretation and judgement. Medical Leaders: Assess insight quality separately from user satisfaction when evaluating an AI pilot. Capability Teams: Train for scientific terminology, local languages and critical review of every summary.

A practical next step: Pilot locally and measure documentation burden, correction effort, actual turnaround and independently reviewed insight quality.

RAPID was a small, single-company pilot using study-specific measures. The findings support careful local evaluation; they do not establish better productivity or equivalent insight quality.

Explore the RAPID study

The full library entry includes our summary, key takeaways, practical actions, infographic and a link to the original open-access paper.

Matt & David Edge Medical Solutions

Source: Abbas et al. Pharmaceutical Medicine (2026). DOI: 10.1007/s40290-026-00630-0.