Automation can alleviate many of these time, cost, and labor challenges, but only if companies are willing to embrace automation, and to do the hard work required to support a digital transformation.

Most industry professionals recognize that automation and artificial intelligence (AI) can add significant value to the safety workflow. When deployed successfully, AI can automate many elements in the safety environment including management of non-electronic data, processing inbound data, and triaging data based on its source. These applications deliver higher levels of productivity with lower technology costs and lessens the reliance on manual labor to get tasks completed.

So why are pharma companies slow to make the transition? For many, uncertainty about how to proceed can paralyze progress. Senior stakeholders may be able to envision a future state of total safety automation, but they lack a roadmap to lead them there, and they often jump ahead without doing the necessary due diligence. That leads to project planning mistakes, which can cause even the simplest digital transformation efforts to fail.

They set unrealistic expectations, choose the wrong vendors, launch projects without linking them to measurable performance outcomes, or fail to support change management efforts. These are all common missteps on the journey to safety automation.

They can all also be avoided when companies follow the roadmap laid out in IQVIA’s Safety Automation Maturity Matrix.