Tracking clinical guidelines in Altmetric: enhancing Medical Affairs insights

For professionals working in pharmaceuticals, such as Medical Affairs teams, clear evidence that their work influences clinical practice is the ultimate goal. Studies have shown that the impact of research in the real world cannot be measured by traditional means such as journal metrics or citations alone, and have led to the industry adopting omnichannel strategies and metrics (see, Measuring the impact of scientific publications and publication extenders: examples of novel approaches). In view of this, Altmetric has added a new attention source to its range of omnichannel metrics: clinical guideline citations. This feature provides Medical Affairs teams with direct evidence into how their publications are being translated into clinical decision-making, and helps them assess real-world impact more effectively.

We spoke to Julia Mutygullina, Senior Engagement Manager, Digital Science, and Mike Taylor, Head of Data Insights, Digital Science, to understand why clinical guidelines were added to Altmetric and what it could mean for Medical Affairs teams and health care professionals.

A direct response to client needs

The decision to include Clinical Guidelines in Altmetric was driven by pharmaceutical and healthcare clients. “The ongoing collaboration between our product team and our pharma customers played a key role in driving this initiative,” says Mutygullina.

Previously, Altmetric tracked policy documents broadly, but the addition of new sources of data would bring a new capacity to better understand the real-world impact. Clinical guidelines are vital because they directly influence medical practice. “Guidelines are as close as you can get to seeing what doctors are being told. And not just doctors, but nurses, physiologists, and other healthcare professionals (HCPs),” explains Taylor. The integration of these data in Altmetric allows for a focussed and structured view of clinical guideline adoption, making it easier to track influence in treatment protocols.

“We’ve hit the ground running,” says Taylor, “using a range of technological approaches (including Artificial Intelligence) and data sources, we’ve built an impressive dataset, indexing 18,954 clinical guidelines, from 1820 organisations, and we are continuously working to ensure that the coverage grows over time. Our clients have been very supportive, they’ve provided us with lists of new guidelines they’d like to index, including an impressive list of Rare Disease guidelines, as well as giving us a lot of support to understand how they could use this database to understand the effectiveness of their communication strategies,” adds Taylor.

The non-exhaustive list of organizations that the Altmetric product team has worked with to build the dataset on clinical guidelines showing the range of therapeutic areas and regions covered

• European Association of Urology 
• European Society for Medical Oncology; American College of Cardiology
• American College of Radiology, American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) United States
• American Society of Dermatopathology, Association of Cytogenetic Technologists,
• Emergency Nurses Association
• National Comprehensive Cancer Network, United States 
• Australian Society for Infectious Diseases
• Sociedade Brasileira de Cardiologia, Brazil
• Société des Obstétriciens et Gynécologues du Canada
• Association française d’urologie, France
• Japanese Association for Infectious Disease
•  Japanese Breast Cancer Society
• Korean Association of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, Republic of Korea
• African Association of Nephrology, South Africa
• British and Irish Porphyria Network
• British Society for Haematology 
• Cystic Fibrosis Trust, United Kingdom

From research to clinical impact

Traditionally, Medical Affairs teams relied on evidence from desk research, conferences and Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) to gauge the impact of their company’s research on guidelines. 

“Awareness is one thing,” says Taylor, “but what we are hoping to provide by surfacing this data is intelligence and insights.” Having clinical guidelines tracked in Altmetric means HCPs can now track how research is evolving (even before it gets cited in a guideline) and measure how quickly the guidelines are incorporating new findings. This will allow for data-driven conversations about the effectiveness of scientific communication strategies and real-world adoption of treatments.

What sets Altmetric apart

While there are other platforms that track clinical guidelines, Altmetric is the first to integrate them into a unified research analytics set-up. “We are the first to really have them integrated into the whole research environment,” says Taylor. “Rather than treating guidelines as a standalone data source, Altmetric connects them with journal articles, preprints, authors, affiliations, sponsoring organisations and our full range of metrics to provide a comprehensive view of research influence,” he explains.

A team of subject matter experts at Digital Science with an HCP background and in-depth knowledge about clinical guidelines, played key roles in developing our document curation strategy. “They gave us insights into guidelines used, maintained and how they translate to clinical impact,” says Taylor. “It is their expertise that supported us to develop a rigorous process, utilizing our deep expertise in publication analysis, information extraction and AI-supported selection. Together, this has led to the development of a truly valuable asset that enables us to directly answer the needs of our Medical Affairs colleagues,” he adds.

Why this matters for medical affairs professionals

For Medical Affairs professionals, a citation of their company’s treatments  in a clinical guideline is a testament to the real-world impact of the research they support. “It enhances the company’s credibility within the healthcare system and patient community. It recognizes the organization and shows that their work is truly shaping clinical practice,”  says Mutygullina. This Altmetric feature means Medical Affairs teams can track the adoption of their research in key clinical guidelines, measure the effectiveness of their medical communications and publication strategies, identify knowledge gaps and opportunities to better inform their strategic decisions, such as congress presence and journal choice, and strengthen engagement with HCPs.

A more complete view of research impact

The inclusion of clinical guidelines is part of a larger effort by Altmetric to support an omnichannel approach to research impact. “Medical Affairs professionals have been on this journey to use more data in their decision-making. Clinical guidelines are clearly one of the ways communication is delivered to physicians,” says Taylor.

Now, alongside tracking social media discussions, news coverage, and policy citations, Altmetric users can see a more complete journey of research: from publication to patient care.

For those with access to Altmetric Explorer, a simple way to get started is by visiting the “Mention Sources” tab, filtering by “Clinical Guidelines,” and exploring how research is shaping medical practice. 

If you want to learn more about Clinical Guidelines in Altmetric, don’t hesitate to contact the Altmetric team.