Gastonia North Blog

Medical Device Recruiters

Insight: Is Data Still a Watchword?

Early in my career I would never have used “Data Analytics” (DA) in the same phrase, probably not even in the same sentence and perhaps not even on the same piece of paper!  Yet for the last 20+ years of my life, those words appear together ubiquitously. 

Just 2 days ago, I was catching-up with a candidate that we placed several years ago.  His skills were a bit eclectic insofar as he had a strong background in Metrology, and if you’re as uniformed as I was at that time; that’s the science of measurement.  Today, he’s still in Quality but in the process of working through a 2-year University level certification on Data Analytics. 

“Really?” I asked to wit, he replied “Randy you know how I love data and drilling into what it means to the outcome of a process.  Today, every company is looking for expertise in DA because they’ve been collecting some sort of data for years but don’t really understand what it means!  Not only that, they aren’t using it to identify risk and, even less frequently using it to forecast risk.  But almost all risk is predictable if you’re collecting data and understand it.” 

I was thinking, “It doesn’t matter how old you get, you still can learn every day.” 

It shouldn’t be a surprise that Data Integrity is also closely monitored by the FDA and it should be even less surprising that the Federal Government has released yet another acronym to address the issue; ALCOA.  The guidance came out in December 2018 and is likely familiar to most of the Quality folks out there but probably not to the peers who perceive themselves to be embroiled in the more important tasks of running a business.  (Sorry, but I had to throw that in there because it’s equally shocking how often I still hear Quality people extol the absence of quality virtues in their company.) 

Once again, Master Control comes to the rescue with a simple overview, written in a way that even a recruiter can understand (it’s ok to laugh out loud here) but more importantly to put the information in a form that helps you understand the risk.  How so?  As a percentage of all FDA warning letters last year, Data Integrity was the source 25% of the time! 

The link appears below and here’s our pitch.  We have more positions available in Quality today than at any time in the +13 years of our business!  QE’s, Managers, you name it; we need you and these are excellent opportunities with excellent companies!  Call us. 

Data Integrity: Trends, Pitfalls, Solutions, and Why DI Is Still Making Headlines