Medical writing is a vast subspace in the health industry, with many changes and transformations occurring within it. Writing forms are being improved and augmented. What are the trends in medical writing that are likely to impact how we work in the future?
Medical writing has completely changed in the last few decades. Medical writers of today need to be somewhat of a hybrid. You have to be able to write for other people, hence the ability to create quality content. But you also need to be able to contribute knowledge to keep the articles within your field accurate and up-to-date.
There are a lot of trends that help in improving medical communication among people as well as between people and machines. Here, we take a closer look at some of those trends.
Medical writing is the lifeline of medical communications
Medical writing is an integral lifeline of medical communication. Professional medical writers have made a significant impact on the medical communication world as medical writing has become a sort of power pack for effective and efficient communication within the healthcare system. It has quite a history of hundreds of years, which has witnessed various phases in medical writing, like the handwritten medications, creative article types to the digital age of biomedical publications that require minimal time investment and optimum productivity.
Medical writing and communication play an important role in the healthcare industry. It forms bridges between the patients, practice communities and researchers and helps in sharing important information for a better health outcome.
Almost all important invention and innovation in the medical field has been preceded by the need to communicate complex information. Thus, the introduction of medical writing was a response to the needs of the international medical field for communicating information about the development of new techniques and organisation of human health care services.
Researchers are becoming more proficient in writing and interdisciplinary collaboration is increasing
Medical writing trends have been noting a shift towards patient-centred care, globalization of healthcare, and a focus on optimizing systems and health IT. Researchers are becoming more proficient in writing so medical communication will continue to change.
Today, data collected from clinical trials is fast being published online on various online platforms. As a result, new trends in medical writing are emerging. Indeed, authors are becoming efficient at writing these studies and going from their traditional printed journal format to an online format with tables and links to other relevant content.
With more and more disciplines involved in the production process (e.g., pharmacists, physicians, and patients), every author offers a unique perspective on how to present the research results. These unique perspectives will likely revolutionise how medical writers work and communicate.
Publications in big data will continue to increase rapidly over the next few years
Big data research has been gaining ground in recent years, despite some serious caveats. This trend will continue to evolve over the next few years and provide medical authors with juicy — and understandable — publication opportunities.
The pace of scientific advancements continues to accelerate at a rapid rate, as does the demand for new ideas and research. This trend has resulted in more papers being published than ever before, leading to an explosion of information which has forced scientists to search for methods to better organise their research. Big data is one of these methods to better understand genetic, epidemiological, and pharmacological research trends.
The rapid growth of scientific journal publishing presents a noble challenge, how to collect and organise large volumes of data in a format that is easily accessible. The study of big data is already a phenomenon among researchers who want to distinguish themselves from the rest. It began with an analysis of the genome, but it has now extended even to analysing a patient’s DNA.
Visualisation of pharmaceutical content will remain one of the most important trends in medical writing
Visualisation of pharmaceutical content will remain one of the most important trends in medical writing. In a world where time is precious, with information coming from all directions, it is obviously beneficial to be able to transform complex (medical) data into easy-to-understand visual elements. That’s why we’ve been seeing more and more articles that are supported by graphs, charts and schematics. In addition to this, it helps to make the information as sharable as possible. Not only does this enable you to reach more people (as more people will share your articles), but also helps you put more pressure on the competition.
The future of drug development and medical communication will be shaped by developments in information technologies, meaning increasingly sophisticated ways of describing symptoms, diseases and treatment options. Visualisation of the information will remain one of the most important trends in medical writing.
Single-drug, single-therapy study design is becoming less common
As pharmaceutical companies look to enhance their research portfolio and stay ahead of the competition, they are expanding their drug-development programs using multiple investigational drugs, sequential therapy, pharmacogenomics, and biomarker tests.
Also, single-drug, single-therapy studies are becoming less common due to the rising costs of new technology and the increasing complexity of drug trials. The global drug development industry is changing, with a significant shift from monotherapy studies to combination therapies and the advent of molecularly targeted drugs, two-drug combinations and companion imaging diagnostics.
This trend is likely to continue as the factors influencing it are unlikely to change quickly.
Expect to see more hybrid types
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a lot of changes in many industries, not least the health industry. Consequently, many businesses in the industry have responded to adapt.
Some of these adaptations will remain with us for a very long time. From hybrid meetings and conferences to hybrid publications, we’ll continue to live with these changes. Publications of medical research will become progressively more diverse, complex and hybrid in nature. Traditional peer-reviewed publications and newer types of open-access, online journals have been joined by a new wave of online-only research funding schemes that offer authors publication ‘fees’ coupled with enhanced reporting standards.
Conclusion
We’ve learned a lot in this post about medical writing trends, and it’s clear that the industry is full of opportunities. Many other industries have taken advantage of content marketing as an effective means of galvanizing consumer interest, creating an evergreen content stream that is relevant year after year. If you’re interested in getting into medical writing, you should know that there are even more opportunities just on the horizon—take advantage of them to ensure your success in this highly-competitive field!
It’s important to keep up with medical writing trends so that you can make sure that your company is what your clients want, rather than what you think they want.
