Nischal P.M., freelance scientific writer on Kolabtree, explains the benefits of hiring freelancers for healthcare consulting services.
Businesses across the globe are outsourcing a host of services to external contractors. Outsourcing is now the norm and is frequently being used for a host of reasons, including, but not limited to, availability of specialized services, efficient services, customer satisfaction, and, economic costs. Healthcare organizations are increasingly outsourcing many of their services, ranging from product development to data analytics. This is more so in the current pandemic situation and in the post-COVID era.
Outsourcing in the healthcare industry
The healthcare industry is one of the industries that uses the support of contractors and freelancers the most. Typically, we see decision-makers in healthcare organizations, agencies and consulting firms outsource tasks that require specialist skills:
- CXOs and Heads of R&D depts at pharma companies
- Health tech entrepreneurs/startup founders CEOs of medtech SMBs
- Hospital CXOs Teaching hospital HODs/senior staff
- CXOs of health data analytics consultancies and SMBs
- CXOS and founders of: Patient advocacy groups / Nonprofit research groups
- Public health organizations (government/NGOs/private)
- Heads of CROs and clinical trial consulting firms
- Medical communication agencies
- Regulatory affairs consultancies (eg. handling FDA applications)
These organizations are now rethinking their strategies with the opportunities and challenges put forth by work-from-home (WFH) and social distancing.
Healthcare consulting services: Frequently outsourced skills
The lists of skilled experts that are typically hired as consultants or freelancers in the healthcare industry include:
1. Medical statisticians and health data analysts
The healthcare industry frequently outsources data analysis work to specialists to get insights from the vast amounts of health data being churned out every day. While health data analysts can help with analyzing complex hospital data and improving outcomes, freelance medical statisticians can provide support for clinical trials, regulatory submissions, verifying research data and more. The role of clinical biostatistics consulting is become more and more important for healthcare organizations of all sizes, ranging from government bodies working in public health to established biopharma companies.
2. Medical Writers
Healthcare professionals and businesses will want to communicate technical, therapeutic, educational, promotional, or informative medical content to their audience. The different kinds of documents include product marketing, medicine/device details, pre-clinical research reports, participant information and consent forms, clinical trial protocols and publications, health promotional content, conference abstracts and presentations, grant writing, patient stories, regulatory documents, post-marketing documents, medical and scientific articles, book chapters, theses, proofreading, copyediting, content for blogs and websites, slide decks, social media content, podcasts, transcripts, news articles. Working with expert medical writers ensures that you get high-quality content while also saving time and energy. Regulatory writers, in particular, can help with the tedious process of FDA submissions and NIH grant funding applications.
3. Clinical Research Consultants
Medical research that involves people is referred to as clinical research. While observational studies observe people in a normal setting, in clinical trials, a medical, surgical, or a behavioral intervention is evaluated. This is the primary way in which researchers will find out if a new treatment or a new medical device is both safe and efficacious in people. Clinical trials are performed for drugs and devices that are being introduced in the market, to ensure they are safe, effective and comply with regulatory standards. Consulting firms and contract research organizations offer writing services and statistical analysis services to help make the process easier and quicker. Freelance clinical trial consultants can help organizations develop robust protocols, apply for grants and analyze data to improve outcomes.
4. Medical Device Consultants
Digital transformation in the form of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled medical devices, telemedicine, and blockchain electronic medical records have brought a tremendous impact in the healthcare sector. Medical device consultants and medtech experts can help business develop innovative models and take them to market. Medical devices go through a complex product cycle involving many regulatory and design challenges. Working with expert consultants helps medtech organizations avoid risk of product recall and huge losses in money and reputation. The recent increase in remote working within the medical device industry has also forced organizations to adapt.
5. Systematic Reviews and Meta Analyses Experts
The study design of both systematic reviews and meta-analyses put them right at the top of the evidence-based medicine (EBM) pyramid. This is due to the fact that they have the highest quality evidence on a given research topic. The study design is such that bias is decreased and the findings are more reliable. Systematic reviews will give a comprehensive précis of available scholarly literature for a given research question or topic. When statistical analysis is pooled to get new statistical conclusions, a meta-analysis is obtained. These skills are frequently outsourced to experts to help researchers save time and get accurate results.
Also read: A step by step guide to conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis
6. Healthcare consultants
Independent consultants are typically engaged by healthcare companies and governments to solve imminent operational or commercial challenges. Consultants are likely to team up with in-house R&D, medical affairs, or, commercial affairs teams. Healthcare consultants, on the basis of their expertise and experience, are able to take up intricate challenges, split them up into smaller, manageable tasks, and execute them in timely manner.
7. Health Food Products
The legalization of CBD and cannabis in some parts of the world, along with a growing awareness in veganism and organic products, has brought about a big change in the production and consumption of “health food” and related products. Food science is where the scientific disciplines of chemistry, nutrition, microbiology, and, engineering, are applied to study the chemical, physical, and biological nature of food, its deterioration, and processing. With food technology, one can apply the science of food into the selection, processing, preserving, packaging, supply, and use of healthy and safe food. Public health experts can advise on food safety and quality. Businesses may want food technologists to create or improve a product, formulate recipes, label the nutritional content, conduct literature search, and optimize the shelf life of their products.
The need for Kolabtree
Kolabtree provides a one-stop solution for businesses looking to hire industry experts and subject matter experts. Healthcare consultants, data analysts, formulation experts and freelance medical writers: a variety of experienced professionals offer their services on a freelance basis on Kolabtree.
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