Transforming Medtech Safety with Automated Social Media Monitoring

The rise of social media and the evolving online digital landscape present both opportunities and challenges for medtech companies. These platforms have become a powerful tool for consumers to voice their experiences, including potential issues with medical devices. For example, in the last year, the global number of social media users has expanded to more than 5 billion users, representing an 8% growth rate for year-over-year usage. This number is only expected to increase in volume over the next few years and beyond. As these online platforms grow, the healthcare industry is beginning to leverage these data sources to improve patient safety through social media monitoring.

The pharmaceutical industry has pioneered the use of advanced technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) to monitor patient safety and adverse drug reactions. But in the medical device industry, where complaints often play out on social media, a significant gap still exists. Traditional medical device safety monitoring relies on passive reporting systems, but in the digital age, patients are increasingly turning to social media channels to voice their concerns and complaints.

The Challenge of Unstructured Data: From Anecdotes to Actionable Insights

The reporting of adverse events (AEs) or product dissatisfaction has migrated from medical associations and regulatory reporting systems to various online platforms. Customer-focused mechanisms of reporting include conversations on social media platforms, audio transactions, and digital assets such as chatbots and wearables. Though these platforms now provide more anecdotal experiences of patients and consumers voicing medtech concerns, they do present the challenge of recording and tracking this valuable information.

The challenge in assessing these online resources is that the information is often sourced from unstructured data. To solve this issue, organizations are turning to automated social media monitoring through AI and NLP in order to identify potential product complaints and AEs while reducing the amount of irrelevant data entering safety databases. This technology has the potential to advance the medtech industry by automating regulatory compliance and safety surveillance.

This technology offers medical device companies the chance to utilize social media data for gaining commercial and clinical insights, all the while enhancing patient safety. Embedding technology with robust safety-specific pattern identification abilities allows monitoring systems to navigate the use of slang and emojis across social media platforms. This technology is then able to identify these digital records and sort them to be manually reviewed by safety event professionals. The rapid identification of valid safety events not only accelerates detection timelines but also decreases the administrative burden in sorting and identifying medical device concerns.

For example, one organization was able to remove 74% of irrelevant data out of the workflow, by sorting through millions of social and digital records. This technology significantly reduces irrelevant data in safety databases. Through advanced pattern recognition, this technology can identify additional potential safety concerns related to medical device usage.

This approach uses real-time social media data to proactively identify and analyze potential patient safety concerns. By incorporating relevant information, it aims to enhance patient safety and ensure regulatory compliance, while streamlining data management by minimizing the inclusion of irrelevant details in safety databases and quality management systems.

Regulatory Compliance and the Importance of Proactive Monitoring

In addition to ensuring patient safety, numerous quality and compliance-related guidelines require that medical device companies perform post-market surveillance to ensure their products are performing as expected. FDA’s Medical Device Reporting Program (21 CFR Part 803) mandates that organizations report specific device-related adverse events and product concerns. Equipping your organization with the proper technology to readily respond and detect safety concerns is not only paramount to patient outcomes but also to regulatory guidelines.

The medical device manufacturing industry is experiencing unprecedented regulatory complexity. Over the past five years, there has been a 54% increase in national authority documents relating to regulatory requirements in the medical device industry. Increased stringent requirements challenge organizations’ ability to handle an increasing amount of data required to comply with new guidelines. Incorporating advanced technology to expand the sourcing of patient feedback allows stakeholders to ensure compliance and optimize patient safety.

Advanced social media monitoring tools streamline data gathering and analysis for medical device safety. These tools utilize sophisticated algorithms to reduce irrelevant information within social media content. This allows for faster identification of potential adverse events and minimizes the amount of extraneous data entering compliance modules. Implementing this approach creates a compliant and validated real-world data source, bolstering regulatory compliance and safety surveillance.