Work Faster: The Medical Writing Tool You Need Now
Using Novel Technology to Solve Editorial Bottlenecks
If you are reading this, it’s likely you know how crucial the final editing step is to overall document quality. That’s where we fix those gross formatting errors, embarrassing grammar mistakes, and inconsistencies in data. But there is another layer below this that also reflects upon document quality: consistency of style.
Ensuring every bit of content conforms to a single editorial standard across hundreds of documents is a Herculean task (or Sisyphean for you pessimists). The challenge is compounded when trying to harmonize myriad documents, each authored by a different person. The use of a style guide is essential; unfortunately, there is a limit to what a style guide can reasonably define, and even if one is available, applying editorial standards is often left to the editor at the very end.
To fully define the editorial standards, most pharma companies choose to align with the American Medical Association’s Manual of Style. Most industry editors know their way around the AMA Manual. But have they committed all 1000+ pages to memory? Or assuming he or she can perform this superhuman feat, do they have the time to scour every line of text? Editors work inside the parameters imposed by looming deadlines and limited budgets, which dictate a hierarchy to what they review – the reality is that some style elements are just not checked.
But what if we could automate how we scan documents for consistency and style? What if there was a tool that could review a 150-page document in a minute?
I have been a medical writer for nearly 20 years and early on it became clear to me that automation could drastically increase the precision and scope of our edits. After founding Acumen, we put our brains together to make this idea a reality.
We call our automated solution the Electronic Style Guide, or ESG. The concept is simple:
Compile all of the defined scientific and medical terms and editorial standards into a cloud-based database
Allow customization, so customers can add their own company- or program-specific terminology to their own versions of the database
Connect the database to a Microsoft Word add-in so that editors anywhere can scan any Word document against these standards
With the ESG we can now correct the spelling of generic drug names, italicize all genes and species names, and ensure hyphenation and non-breaking spaces are consistently applied. The list goes on and on, and the speed and depth of review is now exponentially better.
With the ESG, an editor is now free to focus on more important aspects, such as ensuring clear messaging and appropriate document flow. Lucky for us, writing departments will always rely on human writers and editors, but with the help of a little automation, the quality of our documents can take a big leap forward.
If you want to learn more about our writing software, please visit our website at Acumenmedcom.com or drop us a direct email at info@acumenmedcom.com.
Justin McLaughlin
Founder and CEO
Acumen Medical Communications
