phactMI Executive Spotlight: Stacey Fung, Vice President of the Board of Directors
As part of our phactMI Executive Spotlight series, we spoke with the Vice President of the phactMI Board of Directors, Stacey Fung.
phactMI: How long have you been involved with phactMI? What are the major benefits of phactMI membership to you as a Medical Information executive?
Stacey: I initially become involved with phactMI during its beginning stages when I was the chairperson for the DIA Medical Communications Community. I wanted to extend DIA Medical Communications Community support to phactMI and explore ways the two organizations could work together. A few of the early presentations from the founders of phactMI were at DIA meetings. I also had opportunities to share information about phactMI at DIA meetings in China in 2015 and Japan in 2016. I formally joined phactMI in 2018 when I became involved in the benchmarking survey project and supported the development of a publication on globalization of medical information functions.
Participating in phactMI has helped me and my team better understand other member companies’ challenges and innovations when providing medical information to customers. As a phactMI company member, my team has become more confident when dialoging with internal cross functional partners on our innovative ideas and plans. My team and I are also more comfortable connecting with medical information colleagues from other companies. My participation provides an opportunity to gain exposure to innovative ideas, strong leaders in medical affairs, and provides development opportunities to participate on work streams and initiatives in support of the profession and function. It is nice to be part of an organization with like-minded colleagues.
phactMI: Please tell us about specific projects you have been involved with at phactMI. Can you summarize what was learned, and what the outcomes were?
Stacey: I had the opportunity to participate in the benchmarking initiative where I provided input to the survey tool and questionnaire, assisted with analyzing the results, and contributed to 3 publications reporting the findings. These benchmarking survey findings assisted member companies by allowing organizations to see how they compared with others and provided considerations to support forecasting for growth along with inspiring teams to forge ahead to support development of services or other activities.
I also participated as a reviewer for a publication focused on globalization of medical information groups. This collaborative effort highlighted the richness of phactMI expertise and diversity of experiences. I believe the readers of the manuscript could see the experience behind the survey findings and the examples that shaped the narrative for the discussion portion of the publication. It was a honor to participate and contribute to this effort. I took away several learnings to support potential avenues to take within my organization.
More recently, I coordinated the publication of an online article discussing the internal value of Medical Information within pharmaceutical organizations. The work group gathered feedback from across the phactMI member companies and distilled the information into key focus areas. It was great to see how much impact and value that Medical Information groups bring to our organizations.
In 2019, I become a member of the phactMI Board of Directors and this year I was elected to the Vice President role on the Board of Directors. With these roles, I have acquired additional skills that support a more all-encompassing mindset from my day job. Personally, I have valued the opportunity to work with SMEs in our field, learning from others, as well as participating and contributing to initiatives that bring insight and value to our member companies. The opportunity to review and analyze the collective information of the phactMI group has been a rich growth and educational experience.
phactMI: In your opinion, how should the Medical Information industry evolve in the next 5–10 years. Do you think phactMI can help with that?
Stacey: The scientific and clinical data which we curate as medical information professionals will play a prominent role in the way our companies communicate their evidence, and also inform content strategies. Medical Information insights and the voice of the customer are becoming integral to the development of medical strategies. In addition, work has begun to bring our medical information to where our healthcare and patient customers are, such as being embedded in the routine resources which they use.
Medical Information teams are already an integral part of Medical Affairs organizations. In the future, medical information teams will be poised to offer more to the organization and to external customers. This might be the exception rather than the norm now, but I foresee having a Medical Information leader head up all of Medical Affairs, or even be a company CEO in the future.
PhactMI can play a role in facilitating all of this in my opinion.
Follow phactMI on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. See previous Executive Spotlights with Patrick Reilly, CEO; Mary Sendi, President of the Board of Directors; and Jennifer Riggins, Former Past-President.
