The objective of this document is to provide the 1st report of the PharmaLedger Workshops, Events and the key activities engaged in, and achieved, to end of M18.
The report focuses on the design and delivery of a series of webinars to support the Co-Creation Workshops which became the only method of achieving the aims of dissemination and communication possible during the global COVID-19 pandemic.
The report examines the steps and elements which were factors in the successful delivery of the webinar series including the overall strategy, the format for the webinars, the workflow required to deliver the webinars on time, the method of delivery and the feedback mechanisms put in place to identify improvements and measure impact with audiences.
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DOCUMENT INFO
Authors
Author Organization
Martin Hunt Onorach Clinical Ltd
Hirkirit Virdee Novartis
Document History
Date Version Editor Change Status
30/09/ 2021 1.0 Martin Hunt First final version Draft
06/10/2021 1.1 Martin Hunt Amendments to doc Draft
07/10/2021 1.2 Hirkirit Virdee Amendments to 1.1 Draft
04/11/2021 1.3/1.4 UPM
Comments, final review and
submission
Final
Disclaimer: Any information on this deliverable solely reflects the author’s view and neither IMI nor the European
Union or EFPIA are responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained herein.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS.....................................................................................................................................4
ACRONYMS ...................................................................................................................................................4
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY..................................................................................................................................5
1. INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................6
1.1. Purpose and scope........................................................................................................................6
1.2. Structure .......................................................................................................................................7
2. Webinar Series......................................................................................................................................8
3. Webinar Development..........................................................................................................................9
4. Webinar Outcomes.............................................................................................................................12
5. Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................14
ACRONYMS
CRO Clinical Research Organisation
EFGCP European Forum for Good Clinical Practice
EPF Europeans Patients’ Forum
ePI Electronic Product Information
FAQ Frequently Asked Questions
IoT Internet of Things
NDA Non-Disclosure Agreement
PL PharmaLedger
Q&A Question & Answer
SME Subject Matter Expert
UC Use Cases
WP Work Package
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The objective of this document is to provide the 1st
report of the PharmaLedger Workshops, Events and
the key activities engaged in, and achieved, to end of M18.
The report focuses on the design and delivery of a series of webinars to support the Co-Creation
Workshops which became the only method of achieving the aims of dissemination and communication
possible during the global COVID-19 pandemic.
The report examines the steps and elements which were factors in the successful delivery of the webinar
series including the overall strategy, the format for the webinars, the workflow required to deliver the
webinars on time, the method of delivery and the feedback mechanisms put in place to identify
improvements and measure impact with audiences.
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1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Purpose and scope
The objective of the PharmaLedger Events tasks is to communicate and disseminate significant
PharmaLedger activities, achievements, milestones and successes to stakeholders, consortium members,
other interested parties and the wider academic/industrial players and the general public through a series
of face-to-face, live events the scope of which is listed below:
Showcases and Demonstrations
At every Use Case Site, showcases would be maintained to make demonstrations to targets audiences,
mostly focused on local/ regional/national audiences. These live sessions will provide a forum for
researchers and industrial stakeholders and support conference tracks).
Co-Creation Workshops
Focus group-based foresight exercises that would support co-design events, gathering partners (IT
developers, health and supply chain experts, social and legal experts, and users) for performing foresight
exercises (with the participation of the advisory board and potential PharmaLedger users in some cases).
Validation Workshops
Workshops were conducted at weekly intervals from mid-June through to the beginning of August 2021
specifically in relation to the ePI [Electronic Product Information] use case. These were deemed a great
success given the volume of output and information obtained, as these virtual workshops were planned
out with a specific set of objectives and goals. These 4 workshops included the cross-functional use case
team leads and a diverse group of patient experts provided by the European Patient Forum [EPF]. These
patients had an in-depth knowledge of a wide range of chronic medical conditions / disabilities and were
asked to provide feedback and critique on the functionality of the proposed mobile application, with a
focus on user experience (UX) and user interface (UI).
Essentially, the patient experts were taken on a journey in regards to the authenticity and provenance of
the medicinal product, as well as the mobile application design and how digital information related to the
product should be displayed on a screen. This included feedback on scanning of barcodes and GTIN [Global
Trade Item Number] information from the medication box to which information they deemed to be
vital/imperative and most useful on the mobile application from a patient perspective. Surveys were
carried out after each workshop to capture feedback and to determine which options/features for the
application should be rated higher than others.
From the workshop sessions the patient experts were able to provide incredible feedback, and comments
were captured through a series of digital online mural boards. Scope for the workshops included
prototype ideation & customisable features and all insights were captured in a rose (success), bud (idea)
and thorn (challenge) development approach and incorporated into the new design of the application
which is due late November ’21 [Q4].
Given the overwhelming success of this activity it is proposed that a similar approach should be taken
with all other use cases with the European Patients Forum providing their patient experts given their level
of engagement, diversity, experience, knowledge and input. So far to date the Anti-Counterfeiting use
case has confirmed future involvement with an aim of all other use cases benefitting from this fruitful and
fulfilling interaction.
The proposed methodology for validation [Task 2.6] has been documented and is as follows:
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1. EPF contacts the use case leads to gain understanding if and where patients are affected /
involved.
2. EPF provides a list of eligible use cases to Task 2.6 to be documented in the final T2.6 report
3. EPF organizes the patient feedback sessions with eligible use cases
4. EPF document the results in the Patient Feedback Form as part of the use case sign-off gathered
by Task 2.6
5. Task 2.6 indicates the eligibility survey and the filled Patient Feedback Form as part of the final
deliverable for use case sign-off in the Pre-Validation Instructions
6. Task 2.6 provides a draft of the Patient Feedback Form for commenting / refinement from EPF
This Patient Feedback Template Form has been created with input from Bayer and is a skeleton framework
which can be adapted accordingly depending on the use case. Future workshops are to be organised for
validation and aligned with task T2.6. These are planned for December 2021 / January 2022 until the end
of the project and will involve WP6, UPM and Bayer organising the validation with patients (EPF).
The aim here is to provide other use cases within PharmaLedger to approach their validation processes
with a skeleton framework with which they can work upon and mould to their advantage. This was a fluid
and dynamic process and we fully expect each use case to operate independently however this experience
has provided the project with a benchmark for aligning and collaborating collectively to ensure that the
deliverables associated with Task 2.6 are completed.
PharmaLedger Final Event
One final large event will be organized and driven by the industry. A final event shall be organised to
widely showcase the PharmaLedger achievements and transferable results. The intention is to hold this
as a face-to-face event somewhere in Europe.
COVID-19 Forced Change of Plans
The Co-Creation Workshop plans were not able to be enacted due to the advent of the global
COVID-19 pandemic which saw the imposition of local, national and international restrictions
making face-to-face events impossible. In order to try and stay true to the spirit of the original
plan it was decided to switch to holding ‘virtual’ events instead. This essentially meant hosting a
series of online webinars to communicate and disseminate PharmaLedger activities.
In the near future we hope to return to holding face-to-face workshops and host the Final Event as per
the original plan – national/international COVID regulations allowing.
The scope of this report focuses on the planning, delivery and outcomes of the Co-Creation Workshops
via the PharmaLedger Webinar series.
1.2. Structure
The WP6.6 Team structured the webinars in the following manner:
• Identify an overall strategy for the webinar series
• Agree a format for the webinar events
• Agree specific topics for each webinar (within line of sight)
• Engage with the SMEs for each topic
• Support the SMEs in writing their webinar presentation content
• Produce branded and consistent event visuals
• Pre-record individual presentations and edit into one overall event recording
• Hold live on-line interactive webinar events (2 dates per webinar)
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• Record the events and post them on PharmaLedger’s YouTube channel
• Gather feedback from participants/audience
• Continuously improve the webinar format based on feedback
2. Webinar Series
2.1 Webinar Strategy
The first step was to identify and agree an overall strategy for the webinar series. This was critical to
producing a coherent and logical presentation of the PharmaLedger project to its audiences. The intent
was that there would be linked themes between the webinar events (as well as links between the
individual presentations within each webinar). This would tell the ‘story’ of PharmaLedger.
It was decided that the first webinar would be an internal event focusing on specific Work Packages (WP2
& 3). The event would bring all consortium members to the same shared understanding of the approach
and work of the project to date.
It would be followed by a series of external (public) webinars that set out a progressive ‘walk-though’ of
the Use Cases would be the most effective way of achieving this as well as highlighting the
interconnectedness of the Use Cases.
From the second webinar onwards, the strategy focused on covering several Use Cases in each webinar –
the groupings of Use Cases were dictated by their flow between one to the next.
Hence the strategy was to present the following:
Webinar #1
“From Design to Development” WP3 Architecture Fundamentals
“From Design to Implementation” WP2 Overview
Webinar #2
“A Trust-Centric Healthcare Journey” covering the following Use Cases:
• Clinical Supply Use Case
• Finished Goods Traceability Use Case
• ePI (eLeaflet) Use Case
• Anti-counterfeiting Use Case
Webinar #3
“A Trust-Centric Healthcare Journey Part II”
• Clinical Trial eRecruitment Use Case
• Clinical Trial eConsent Use Case
• Clinical Trial Internet of Things (IOT) Devices Use Case
• Personalised Medicines Use Case
The strategy was discussed within the WP6.6 Team and was agreed by PL Leadership.
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3. Webinar Development
Once the strategy was agreed, the next step was to develop a format for the webinars which would
effectively communicate with the audience, encourage participation and engagement and be cost/time
effective to produce.
The team also needed to engage with a technical partner fluent and experienced in building, promoting
and hosting (from a technical standpoint) on-line webinars.
Through a series of meetings and discussions the webinar partner was identified and engaged. After a
competitive tendering process, the team selected a digital marketing agency who had an existing
relationship with PL – providing services to build, host and manage PL’s website. They had a perfect
match to the skills/services we sought and were highly cost competitive.
3.1 Webinar Format
Joint discussions with the digital marketing agency established a format for the webinars which (with
minor adjustments has remained the same):
• Welcome by host
• Introduction to PL by a WP or UC Lead
• Pre-recorded presentations with live in-presentation audience polls and question posting
• Summary of the poll results at the end of last presentation
• Live Q&A with speakers using moderated questions posted during the presentations
• Wrap-up and close.
Each webinar was 1.5 hours in duration. Each webinar was held twice - on different days, with one in the
morning and one in the afternoon to accommodate the maximum audience participation from multiple
time zones.
3.2 Pre-Recording
Pre-recording of the speaker presentations was deemed to be the best way of delivering a seamless event
with minimal opportunities for technical difficulties. It also put speakers at ease knowing they were not
presenting ‘live’. During the pre-event recording sessions, they could ‘re-take’ their presentations as many
times as they wished in order to capture their best delivery.
Each live hosting of the webinar was also recorded in full (including the Q&A) so that it could be posted
to PL’s YouTube channel. The individual sections of the webinars were also posted to YouTube so they
could be viewed independently of the whole event recording. These sectional recordings were also
available by the UC teams for their own communication activities.
During the webinars, audience participation and interaction was encouraged and enabled by use of SLIDO
software which allowed the audience to answer poll questions posed during presentations and submit
questions which were answered during the live Q&A at the end of the webinar.
The webinars included a feedback mechanism to allow us to gather direct feedback from the audience on
how they felt about the webinars. The feedback was captured using survey questions.
The results of the survey questions were analysed, discussed and improvements identified and
implemented. The 3 survey result documents are included in Appendix 1 at the end of this report.
3.3 Timing
The timing of the webinars took consideration of the frequency and corresponding milestones of the Use
Cases that were presented. The agreed frequency allowed sufficient time between webinars to facilitate
full and effective planning, preparation and marketing of the events and to ensure that the Team did not
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‘over-load’ audiences with too many webinars in quick succession. However, the frequency was not so
low that PL lost momentum or the continuation of the narrative between the webinars for the audience.
Therefore, the dates of the webinars held to date were:
• Webinar #1 – July 22nd
2020 and July 29th
2020.
• Webinar #2 – November 24th
2020 and December 2nd
2020.
• Webinar #3 – February 24th
2021 and March 3rd
2021.
3.4 Preparation Workflows
In order to deliver successful webinars, a workflow was developed between the WP6.6 Team and the
digital marketing agency. It consisted of the following steps:
• Agreement of webinar topic
• Confirmation of speakers
• Outline of presentation content agreement
• Speaker Training delivered
• Pre-event marketing information agreed
• Pre-event marketing initiated
• Slides completion
• Digital marketing agency graphic designer amendment of slides.
• PMB review of content
• Dry-run of presentations
• Final adjustments
• Recording sessions
• Digital marketing agency editing and build of final webinar
• Hosting of 2 x webinar events
A series of regular meetings between the Team, the digital marketing agency and the Speakers
interspersed these steps to ensure everything stayed on track.
3.5 Speaker Training
A large body of work was dedicated to developing materials to help educate speakers on the requirements
that the webinars placed upon them. With effective training of the speakers and the setting of clear
expectations up-front, it meant that obstacles and issues further down the line could be avoided.
Training covered a number of topics which were crucial to the smooth production and running of the
webinars:
• How to build effective slides
• Time available v number of slides
• Use of visual elements and animations
• Getting the balance of technical and non-technical content right
• Preparing for the recording sessions
• How to record voice files (required in the recording sessions)
The training was delivered to all speakers well in advance of the recording sessions and the Team worked
closely with speakers throughout their presentation development to ensure their slides met the webinar
brief.
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3.6 Event Promotion
Effective communication and promotion of the webinars was critical to their success. To this end as soon
as the topics and speakers were identified, the Team worked closely with the digital marketing agency to
build marketing messages and content. For the first webinar which was an internal event, these messages
were shared with consortium members via email, briefings and PL newsletter channels. From the second
webinar onwards, the events became accessible to the public so the marketing messages and content
were shared and distributed via the PL website, social media channels, the PL newsletter and through
internal communication channels to all consortium members. Consortium members were asked and
encouraged to share the messages further with their own networks of external contacts through their
own LinkedIn and other social media channels.
3.7 Learning Points
The WP6.6 team sought to gather learning points from the webinar series, and from the 1st webinar, the
following sources were used to obtain learning points:
• The WP6.6 teams own experiences
• Audience feedback
• PharmaLedger Consortium members/PMB feedback
• EU and IMI oversight feedback
The first learning point which is worth highlighting is the need for gender balance in the webinar speaker
line-up. It was felt that in the first webinar, the gender balance of speakers was too heavily swayed
towards male participants. It was a difficult issue due to the fact that speakers were chosen on their
knowledge and expertise rather than their gender.
The second learning point concerned audience participation/interaction which although present in the
first webinar, was limited to the audience posting questions during the presentations which were then
addressed in the live Q&A at the end of the event. It was felt that more audience interaction would be
beneficial.
The changes made from these learning points are expanded in the Webinar Outcomes section of this
report.
The inclusion of audience participation mechanisms within the webinars raised a learning point centred
around the need to ‘moderate’ audience questions submitted via SLIDO.
In the first public webinar an audience member posted a question which was a disguised promotion of
their organisation (not a PL member) and at that webinar the Team had no mechanism of ‘vetting’
questions before they were visible.
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4. Webinar Outcomes
The webinars held to date have been successful in their aim of fostering greater alignment and a common
understanding of PharmaLedgers’ activities, approaches and progress among its members and the general
public.
Outcomes from the webinars have been measured in a number of ways – some quantifiable and some
experiential.
4.1 Quantifiable Outcomes
Quantifiable measurements include Registration, Attendance and Participation rates as well as a range of
questions probing factors such as the level of detail, event meeting expectations, overall rating of the
presentations, visual quality of the event and event communications effectiveness. Scoring by the
audience used a 5-point rating system.
To summarise the Registration, Attendance and Participation rates, please refer to the information below:
Webinar #1:
July 22nd
2020: Registered 71, Attended 55, Participation 77.5%
July 29th
2020: Registered 40, Attended 26, Participation 65%
Webinar #2:
November 24th
2020: Registered 274, Attended 161, Participation 58.7%
December 2nd
2020: Registered 209, Attended 113, Participation 54.1%
Webinar #3:
February 24th
2021: 237 registered, 125 attended, Participation 52.7%
March 3rd
2021: 118 registered, 69 attended, Participation 58.5%
The detailed survey reports generated for each webinar are included in Appendix 1 at the end of this
document.
4.2 Experiential Outcomes
Experiential measurements included asking participants open questions (eg. “What did you like most
about the event?” and ‘What did you like least about the event?”) and to suggest words that best fitted
their feelings about the webinars.
These comment-based outcomes are also included reports appended to this report.
4.3 General Learning Points
The learning points mentioned in the previous section which were identified as part of the webinar
developments yielded two key outcomes:
Gender Balance
Regarding the lack of gender balance, the WP6.6 Team tried to ensure more balanced gender
representation in subsequent webinars whilst also trying to avoid ‘tokenism’. As there were no further
criticisms of this aspect of the events, the Team felt they had succeeded.
Audience Participation
The second learning point regarding audience participation had a simple solution. In order to increase
interaction, the Team introduced live ‘polls’ during the speakers' presentations. Each speaker was
required to ask at least 1 question of the audience during their presentation. The audience could ‘vote’
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on the question posed using the SLIDO software embedded in the events. The inclusion of the polls
achieved two outcomes:
1. The audience had more opportunity to interact.
2. The speakers gained direct feedback from the audience on the issues their question addressed.
Overall satisfaction feedback from audiences improved and stabilised over the series of webinars so the
Team felt they had achieved positive outcomes from the improvement actions they implemented.
4.4 Audience Questions
With regard to the issue of audience members mis-using the SLIDO question facility either for promotional
purposes or for malicious messages, the Team inserted a ‘moderation’ step into the SLIDO. The new step
allowed a member of the WP6.6 Team to see each question as it was submitted, review its content/intent
and either approve or reject the question. Only approved questions became visible to the audience and
were addressed in the live Q&A. This new step effectively prevented misuse of the Q&A facility.
4.5 Webinar Production
The process of webinar production has had positive outcomes and improvements. With each webinar the
WP6.6 Team have gained more knowledge, experience and understanding of how to build effective
webinars. The relationship between PL and the digital marketing agency has deepened so that steps which
relied on both parties and which previously took time and effort to achieve are now achieved far quicker
and with less effort as the digital marketing agency understands what PL expect and PL understand what
the digital marketing agency need to make things happen.
4.6 Webinar Promotion
The ‘reach’ of the webinars as improved due to the success of the initial events, the involvement of PL
consortium members in the promotion of the webinars and in the effective use of all PL channels to
promote the series. Making the webinar recordings available on the PL YouTube channel has lengthened
the exposure and accessibility of the events. The recordings give the webinars a longevity in terms of the
return on investment. They are also part of the legacy of PL and show the progression of the work done
by PL throughout the lifecycle of the project.
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5. Conclusion
This deliverable was concerned with the development and delivery of a webinar series which became the
only viable method of communicating and disseminating the work of PL during the global COVID-19
pandemic. It replaced all face-to-face planned events which had been the original planned method of
communication of PL’s work.
The result of the work done to date on this deliverable is the production of a series of webinars which
have communicated the work of PL, telling a story which bridged across the 3 webinar events to give an
overall picture of the way in which PL is applying blockchain technology to transform the
pharmaceutical/healthcare industry.
The 3 webinars in the series so far have effectively communicated and disseminated information, raised
PL’s global visibility and reputation and engaged with PL consortium members and public audiences and
interested parties outside of PL.
The mechanisms developed over the series of webinars have been tested, refined, and improved and now
form an effective template for future webinars.
A 4th webinar is currently in development, and it is being organised using all of the mechanisms, materials,
workflows and learning points established during the production of the previous 3 webinars. To this end
we are confident of this webinar being as successful as he others in communicating and disseminating the
work of PharmaLedger.
Future:
We fully intend to go back to face-to-face events for the Validation Workshops and hold a live “in-person”
as long as COVID national/international restrictions allow.