Cubist Pharmaceuticals, like many large enterprises, likes to keep its employees up-to-date in a constantly evolving professional environment. To that end, it set up a Knowledge Services department, which helps provide medical and scientific information services for colleagues.

The department, which manages corporate journal subscriptions, recently created an integrated eLiterature workflow process to make it easier for employees to conduct literature searches and access full-text articles.  The department wanted to enhance information services to expand subscription management to other content sources, including real-time pharmaceutical news. 

Amyas Huston, Cubist's senior manager of medical communications, recently shared with FierceCIO the steps his organization took to create a one-stop information site for employees to access real-time streamed, federated, filtered and easily searchable content.

FierceCIO: Who in your organization identified the need for a site with real-time, consolidated content?

Huston: Knowledge Services identified the need for a single technology platform that could consolidate real-time filtered pharmaceutical news from both premium and open-resource content and make it easily accessible to end users. Early in 2010, we launched the InfoDesk eNews site within Cubist.

FCIO: Who are the primary users?

Huston: The primary users include members of the Knowledge Services department, along with team members from corporate communications, business, regulatory and product teams. Content on the site is readily accessible to all team members in a web fly-out design format, or based on filtered categories such as "Pharmaceutical News" or advanced search queries.

Teams within Cubist utilize the InfoDesk InfoViewer web based publishing tool to federate, select and deliver personalized content in various formats such as alerts or newsletters to their stake holders.

FCIO: How did users get the information they needed before you created this site?

Huston: Prior to the establishment of the Knowledge Services department, medical and scientific information was available through a number of services and subscriptions with varying levels of centralization and sharing capabilities. Individual departments and teams often purchased and managed their own resources. Many of the resources were siloed and it was more difficult to conduct literature searches and access full-text articles.

FCIO: What competitors to InfoDesk did you look at?

Huston: We reviewed a number of services, technologies and vendors, including publisher- and aggregator-provided platforms. We chose the services of InfoDesk due to their content neutral approach and advanced technology solutions to integrate content from various identified sources. InfoDesk also provided various solutions for the delivery of content and to facilitate the sharing of content within the organization. The InfoDesk platform also ensured compliance with copyrights and license agreements.

FCIO: How was the implementation?

Huston: Considering the scope of the project, the implementation was relatively quick and painless. InfoDesk provided personalized service in identifying business and pharmaceutical news content sources. Cubist Knowledge Services also worked with our premium subscription accounts to include delivery of their content into the InfoDesk environment. Literature alerts feed into the eNews site providing colleagues with linkresolver enabled full text articles from the search results.

FCIO: Are users using it in any ways you didn't anticipate?

Huston: Both Knowledge Services and power users are finding new ways to use the solutions and tools. We do take advantage of the platform to instantly replicate content to Intranets and other work flow tools.

The main benefits are that it centralizes the management of resources, integrates content from various identified sources, facilitates the sharing of content within the organization, and ensures compliance with copyrights and license agreements.

FCIO: What do you wish the technology would do that it doesn't do?

Huston: Knowledge Services envisions taking further advantage of the InfoDesk platform and various solutions to augment our real-time information services. Services would be enhanced with the addition of more external resources (such as from base or core content resource aggregator providers, and selected RSS feeds and web scraped content using InfoDesk technology) and internal data to the eNews site, as well as optimizing delivery and enhancing workflow solutions individualized to the needs of our colleagues.

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