HealthEd Blog

Keep the Blog Rolling: Our Favorite Healthcare Industry Blogs

At HealthEd, we absorb a wide spectrum of healthcare content each day: marketing trends, advocacy efforts, technology research, policy news. We are passionate learners ourselves, interested in a wide variety of topics, which helps us generate ideas, insights, and innovative solutions for our clients.

Of course, there are thousands of blogs on the Web for every topic imaginable. Where do you start looking? We thought it would be fun to build a blog roll of some of our favorites, and share them with you here. You’ll see these sites listed on the right side of all our blog pages from now on. And we’ll make sure to keep the list growing. (Want to suggest a blog? Drop me a note.)

Drum roll, please:

Pharma Marketing Blog, written by the inimitable John Mack, publisher and editor of Pharma Marketing News and avid Hawaiian-shirt wearer, this blog focuses on all aspects of pharmaceutical marketing and FDA guidelines.  

Disease Management Care Blog, a patient care blog that looks behind the scenes of patient-centered medical homes, chronic illnesses, and disease management, written by self-described “blogvocateur” Dr. Jaan Sidorov.

The Healthcare Marketer, an in-depth look at healthcare marketing, including many quirky infographics and YouTube videos with essential data for hospital, practice, and MD marketers. Written by Dan Dunlop, president of Jennings Healthcare Marketing Agency.

HealthBlawg, a popular healthcare legislative blog that has extensively covered the Affordable Care Act and attempts to make sense of healthcare reform and policy issues. You can find blogger Dan Harlow of Harlow Group LLC out and about at conferences and events throughout the year.  

Pixels and Pills, a collaborative blog published by Zemoga, a “digital collaboration machine,” dedicated to keeping up-to-date with events, technology, and trends in digital pharma. Managed by Michael Spitz (aka @spitzstrategy) and known for their video blogs at healthcare industry events.

Florida Literacy Coalition, a new blog from the Sunshine State that promotes the awareness of adult literacy with news, tips, and insights for those committed to improving literacy in communities. We like the posts about health and digital literacy in particular.            

SurroundHealth Blog, the blog for our healthcare extender online learning community, SurroundHealth, sponsored by HealthEd. Guest posts from healthcare professionals on the changing healthcare landscape.     

Shots, the briefly named health blog belonging to NPR, uses sharp writing, graphics, and audio snippets to make sense of the changing healthcare landscape. One of the few blogs that keeps a keen eye on advances in public health, as well as news about the healthcare business and issues that are “Policy-ish.”

Pharmaphorum, “the home of pharma industry debate” with an intriguing mélange of discussion, news, and events about social media, mobile health, product innovation, and other hot topics in global pharma.

ePharma Rx, written by Wendy Blackburn, EVP at Intouch Solutions, a digital agency with Midwestern charm that enlightens readers about the nitty gritty of social media and mobile marketing in the world of pharma.

The Digital Health Corner, an innovative healthcare blog that analyzes the evolving mHealth landscape. Written by Dr. David Lee Scher, a consultant and former cardiac electrophysiologist who directs the medical app certification program at Happtique.

The Healthcare Blog, one of the most widely sourced blogs written by a host of healthcare professionals and guest authors, who discuss trending topics in health such as patient care, tablets, EHRs, managed care, and healthcare reform.

Pioneering Ideas, the blog home of Pioneer Portfolio, a division of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, highlights breakthrough ideas in healthcare, from big data to mobile games.    

(Author’s note: Special thanks to HealthEd intern Mark Stansbury, who assisted with the research and creation of our blog roll.)

 

Jeff Greene
VP, Marketing and Product Development
HealthEd

 

 

 

 

The Importance of Care Partner Support

Recently a colleague of mine passed on after a six-year-long battle with brain cancer. He was in his thirties and left behind two young sons and his wife who is a living angel.  Personally, there are many important things I will take away from this. He never lost faith. He lived his life with passion and fought to the end. He was always happy and thankful for all that he had in his life.

Professionally, I had some takeaways as well. My colleague worked in pharmaceutical marketing and certainly was an educated patient. However, his wife was the pillar who held everything together. Caring for him, understanding and researching treatments, getting him into clinical trials, fundraising…whatever it was, she was essential to it all.

Sometimes illness can be as challenging for the care partner as for the patient. While it certainly is important for the patient to understand their treatment and side effects, it is also critical for the care partner to equally understand. Additionally, they need support to help their loved one handle treatment, as many times, especially with cancer, it can be a difficult process.

When you consider that 29% of the US population (over 65 million people) provides care for a chronically ill family member or friend, this is a large audience with a tremendous need for resources. These people spend an average of 20 hours per week caring for their loved one, all while potentially balancing a job, care of their children, and the stress of everyday life.

So how can we help care partners? When we develop resources for patients, we should address the needs of the care partner as well. Care partners need the same information that patients do, such as disease understanding, treatment expectations, and side effects. As for patients, all care partner materials should be presented in a health literate way while utilizing adult learning principles such as analogies or storytelling to aid understanding.

Additionally, care partners can benefit from help with the following:

Practical tips on:

• How to give care
• Managing appointment schedules
• Navigating insurance claims
• Accessing treatment

Emotional help with:

• Providing emotional support to the patient
• Recognizing the signs of depression in the patient
• Coming to terms with the diagnosis and being realistic about it
• Enlisting the support of others for driving, cleaning, meals etc
• Utilizing social media to garner support from friends and family
• Finding support groups

Personal needs such as:

• Taking care of themselves and their health
• Staying positive
• Keeping up with their own interests and activities

While nothing can ease the pain of having a loved one who is ill, certainly the right resources can help care partners cope. In turn, the care partner will be better enabled provide emotional and physical care and help the patient with their treatment.

Mary Lou Szekeres
Client Development Manager
HealthEd

 

 

Healthcare Extenders: The Unsung Heroes of Healthcare

When a patient needs new medication or treatment, typically it’s a doctor’s name and signature on the prescription slip. As a result, pharma companies have invested much of their promotional resources interacting with physicians. Today, as the healthcare landscape shifts, pharma is beginning to recognize the power of a different professional audience whose influence can be felt well beyond the prescription.

These health professionals, who run the gamut from physician’s assistants to social workers to dietitians, support patients in their treatment decisions and provide the one-on-one attention that doctors often cannot. They are the ones who talk patients through the pros and cons of certain medications and help them adhere to their treatment regiments. Often, they work in teams that span across job function and specialty.

These patient-facing health professionals are the healthcare extenders, and they are a key to improving healthcare. Recognizing the role they play, and helping them come together to support patients, can help everyone achieve better health outcomes.

“They don’t always get the attention paid to other stakeholders, yet they are bearing the brunt of many changes in the healthcare system...”

Why pharma should care

Sometimes called allied professionals or mid-level practitioners, healthcare extenders make up a growing group of patient-focused professionals that is becoming increasingly important to the delivery of healthcare outcomes. Often it’s the extender—not the doctor—who is a patient’s primary contact at the point of care and across the lifecycle of chronic disease management.  

As a result of our healthcare system’s demands, physicians are forced to spend countless hours completing required paperwork rather than spending the time they want to with their patients. As pointed out by noted blogger Dr. Kevin Pho (aka KevinMD) in one of his blog posts, paperwork takes up “as much as a third of a physician’s workday” and often comes at the expense of face-to-face time with patients. Changing financial incentives also mean more patients are actually seeing extenders during their visits to “the doctor,” as well as in most other clinical settings.

This is where healthcare extenders come in. They are what we consider the unsung heroes of the healthcare system. They don’t always get the attention paid to other stakeholders, yet they are bearing the brunt of many changes in the healthcare system and are looking for practical solutions that can help their patients manage and thrive.

Healthcare extenders are often the professionals who best understand a patient’s reluctance to start or stay on a treatment—a vital touchpoint for pharma. In diabetes care, for example, it’s often a certified diabetes educator, not an endocrinologist, who is helping a patient successfully learn how to inject insulin and integrate the therapy into their lifestyle. Extenders also bring a unique perspective to understanding what really goes on during the clinical encounter, such as the role of care partners in treatment decisions.

The importance of collaboration

One of the biggest opportunities we are seeing for pharma to interact with healthcare extenders is in the area of collaboration. A collaborative approach among different types of healthcare providers can help increase efficiency and improve patient care. Research has shown that as health professionals collaborate with others from a variety of disciplines, they gain the skills to better meet needs of their patients, which ultimately leads to better healthcare outcomes.

“...as health professionals collaborate with others from a variety of disciplines, they gain the skills to better meet needs of their patients...”

For busy health professionals, one way to obtain this education is by connecting with others online. Social networks, listservs, and discussion forums that promote and support interprofessional collaboration among health professionals are proliferating online. We are seeing pharma companies more actively supporting extenders’ learning goals by supporting these communities with grants and sponsorships. While care needs to be taken to balance promotional objectives with learning needs, it’s great to see pharma companies investing in the education of these unsung heroes of healthcare.

Extenders are the future

As a former patient navigator, it was surprising to see how often healthcare extenders are overlooked. Pharmaceutical programs, Web sites, and brochures are typically focused on physicians, when it is really the healthcare extenders who are on the forefront of patient education. In the future, patients are likely to spend even more time with extenders—all the more reason for pharma to pay greater attention to their educational needs.

In conclusion, the more ways that pharma can reach these patient-facing professionals and make it easier for them to collaborate with one another, the more the industry can help create a healthier world. That would be a great outcome not only for patients … but also for the extenders who quietly serve them.

This article was previously published as a guest blog for PharmaPhorum

 

Dominika Samojlik
Community Manager
SurroundHealth 

Tweet Your Way Into 68 Million Hearts During High Blood Pressure Awareness Month

 

If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve also spent some time today on Facebook, Twitter, and maybe even YouTube^T.

And if you were paying attention, there’s also a good chance someone you follow posted or tweeted about High Blood Pressure Awareness Month, designated for the month of May. Did you notice?

If you did, it may have led you to the American Heart Association (AHA) Web site  where some pretty cool stuff is going on. The AHA is currently running a campaign to create and upload your own video on your heart-healthy eating habits. The creator of the video that receives the most votes will receive $500 in AHA merchandise.

Why is it so important to pay attention? Well, that video could reach a lot of hearts. About 1 in 3 US adults—an estimated 68 million—has high blood pressure (also known as hypertension). This increases the risk for heart disease, stroke, congestive heart failure, and kidney disease.

Men are at greater risk for high blood pressure if they are over 45 years old. For women the risk is higher if they are older than 65 years old. African Americans develop high blood pressure more often, and earlier than whites and Mexican Americans.

There are some easy steps to help prevent high blood pressure this May, and all year long. Maintain a healthy diet low in saturated fat, sodium, and cholesterol. Get regular exercise, quit smoking, and limit alcohol to help lower your blood pressure. That’s 139 characters of great advice, perfect for Tweeting.

Now that you’re in the know, what are you going to do about it?

Designate one day this May to make just 1 post or tweet on your favorite social networking site to spread the word on high blood pressure and you can educate millions of people. Don’t forget your doctor, too – it’s important to talk with your doctor about your health and get regular screenings.

The average Facebook user has about 190 friends and the average Twitter user has 127 followers– that’s a lot of hearts.

Michelle Yered
Senior Account Executive
HealthEd

 

 

What’s Up At SES? A Lot Of Measurement

Recently, HealthEd sent an intrepid team to SES New York 2012, one of the leading conferences for search, social media, and digital marketing. Here’s what they heard:

Megan Beardsley:          

Avinash Kaushik’s talk was excellent.  Google’s digital marketing evangelist spent a lot of time talking about how to measure attribution (assigning credit for which marketing tactics cause conversion) and how flawed our measurements have been.  He said we spend a lot of time giving credit to the last click, when in fact most consumers may have a long conversion journey with multiple touchpoints.

Sarah Scalet:                     

Avinash was the best. He proved that you can turn an 18,000-row Microsoft Excel document into something visually appealing, useful, and even (his word) “sexy.” He said that marketing vendors need to move beyond “data puking” and offer metrics in a more visually appealing way.

Megan Beardsley:          

The other interesting tidbit I heard was from Richard Kosinski, SVP, Sales at Quantcast. He spoke about the resurgence of banner ads and said online display spending looks set to catch up to paid search by 2015!

Sarah Scalet:                     

He also talked about the job skills that are needed by marketers in today’s data-driven landscape. Richard said, “If you’re going to a math competition—which this is—then you’d better bring mathematicians.” A key takeaway is that there’s a lot of data to make sense of, and we need mathematically-minded people to help make it accessible to the rest of us.

Luis Perez:                         

One big takeaway for me is that there is no magic bullet for success in search. Most of the advice around scoring better on search engines was simply, “Be better.” Avoid mistakes like making your site difficult for a search engine to read. Get other sites to link to yours by reaching out with an e-mail or phone call, and just explaining your offering and requesting a link. It’s part of what some presenters were calling “social muscle.” People trust people, not machines, and so more and more we want to know the person behind the product. It certainly explains the evolution to a more social Internet. 

Dominika Samojlik:         

With so many new social media tools out there, we have to pick channels wisely and interact meaningfully, rather than spreading ourselves too thin. We should not feel that we have to be on every social media outlet. Instead, our needs should dictate the channels we use. A social media strategy is critical, which starts with business goals and requires constant evaluation as you learn.

 

Megan Beardsley

VP, Creative Strategist, Digital
HealthEd

 

 

Sarah Scalet
Content Director, HealthEd OnDemand
HealthEd

 

 

 

Luis Perez
Technical Lead, HealthEd OnDemand
HealthEd

 

 

 

Dominika Samojik
Community Manager, SurroundHealth
HealthEd

 

 

Mobile Healtherati Convene in New Jersey; Pharma Forgets to RSVP

At last week’s mHealthcon, the soon-to-be-annual event that brings together mobile health entrepreneurs, marketers, patients, and investors to talk shop in New Brunswick, NJ, I couldn’t help but think, “Where is pharma?”

Yes, there were a couple of representatives from manufacturers like Bristol-Myers Squibb. But they were vastly outnumbered by their healthcare peers:

• Managed care organizations
• Large healthcare providers
• Physicians and researchers

Mobile is potentially the greatest opportunity for pharma to break out of its innovation funk. And “The Healthcare City,” as New Brunswick bills itself, would have been a great place for pharma to stoke its creative fires—right in the industry’s backyard.

It’s not as if patients aren’t asking for mobile solutions …

“We have the opportunity to drive an ‘Arab Spring’ in healthcare,” said blogger Casey Quinlan, author of Cancer for Christmas and an outspoken patient advocate. Quinlan, diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007, said there were not enough tools available to help her manage her disease and treatment side effects.

“If there had been an app that would have helped me manage my neutropenia (low white blood cell count) and anemia (low red or total blood cell count),” Quinlan told the audience, “I would have easily paid a couple hundred dollars for it.”

Amy Gurowitz, who is launching a learning community for people with MS, said she surveyed her beta testers about their use of tracker apps. Only one person reported using one. “They didn’t even know that these tools are out there,” Gurowitz said, suggesting there is a market for such tools if they can be promoted effectively to patients.

It’s not as if pharma companies are ignoring mobile opportunities…

To be fair, pharma has produced a growing number of mobile apps and tools. (Quick plug: You can read about some mobile pharma case studies in an earlier blog post I co-wrote with digital buddy Megan Beardsley). Some have been built for patients, while most target healthcare providers. 

Still, I’m not convinced that pharma is fully prepared for the coming mobile onslaught. And I’m not the only one.

At a conference break, I caught the attention of Paulo Machado, a leading voice in pharma innovation and the former Innovation Director at AstraZeneca. During our conversation, Paulo really helped crystallize pharma’s conundrum.

In essence, he said, pharma companies are manufacturers. And it’s much harder for manufacturers to evolve away from a product-centric mindset than it is for service providers—your payers, hospitals, clinics, and most other health organizations.

Paulo said that healthcare reform is driving service companies away from the fee-for-service model. “They actually have to run profitable businesses now,” he observed.

Translation: Payers, not pharma, may end up leading the charge into mobile health.

Any tool that helps patients improve outcomes and lower costs will be mission-critical

Sure enough, later in the day Michael Monson, SVP Performance & Innovation at the Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY), encouraged mobile health entrepreneurs to bring him innovative ideas… like, now.

Headquartered in Manhattan, VNSNY is the country’s largest not-for-profit home healthcare service. It is both a provider and a payer. Monson explained that innovation is a large component of the company’s strategic approach. As healthcare evolves in the US, mobile seems to be a major way forward.

 “We really like using behavioral science,” Monson said, referencing partner Welldoc, which is running a mobile adherence pilot for VNSNY with diabetes patients. Welldoc was in the news recently when Ford announced a beta test in which diabetic drivers could “ask” their cars to check their blood glucose levels. The Ford beta is being powered by a Welldoc wireless health monitoring platform.

It’s innovations like these—“software devices that enhance consumers’ lives,” Monson said—that are going to power the future of mobile health.

Mobilization can work for pharma too

The economic rewards for innovation certainly favor companies like Monson’s. But I believe pharma also needs to stand up and put the industry’s significant weight behind mobile health initiatives. Apps would be the logical place to start—they are the most “product-like” side of mobile—and the FDA already issued guidance for health apps this summer.

For pharma innovators interested in going mobile, some next steps should include:

• Familiarizing yourself with the FDA mobile app guidelines
• Getting outside the pharma space
  • Download and use some of the mobile tools that other healthcare organizations have built
  • Look for parallels that could be applicable to branded/unbranded product marketing

Finally, challenge your agencies to think blue sky—have them bring their strongest ideas for mobile to the table, and explore opportunities to pilot in 2012.

Jeff Greene
Director, Digital Strategy
HealthEd

 

 

Of Mustaches and Men's Health

“What’s that fuzz under your nose?” “Is that a new look for you?” “Trying to bring back the Tom Selleck look?” “Is that the iconic Mr. Clean growing a mustache?”

Those are just a few comments men are hearing from their families, friends, and colleagues during November. And that’s the point—to get people talking about why men are growing mustaches this month.

Turning November into Movember

Movember is a global initiative to heighten awareness of men’s health issues. It began in Australia in 2003. In 2010 in the United States, 64,500 men and women joined Movember, and they raised $7.5 million. More and more people are talking about how important it is for men to pay closer attention to their health.  

Globally, Movember focuses on men’s health in general, which makes sense when you think of the number of men who are diagnosed with cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and mental illness. In addition to those men living with chronic or life-threatening illnesses, it critically important to heighten awareness of preventive health measures men can take. Movember’s primary focus, however, is raising awareness about and raising money for prostate cancer. 

Raising awareness for men’s health

According to a Movember study, the US campaign has successfully raised awareness of men’s health issues.  It has also convinced men to take a more proactive approach to their health. When Movember participants were surveyed:

• 96 of 100 spent time thinking about improving their general health
• 87 of 100 understood that their health depends on how well they take care of themselves
• 86 of 100 had a general checkup
• 77 of 100 discussed men’s health with their family, friends, or colleagues during Movember
• 64 of 100 worried about their general health
• 59 of 100 carried out personal research on men’s health issues during Movember

Despite this progress, the research shows that 1 of 2 men would rather ignore a health-related issue than go to a doctor.

Supporting Movember at HealthEd

riThis is HealthEd’s first year supporting the Movember movement. Several Mo Bros (as they are called) are growing mustaches, and their Mo Sistas are supporting their Mo Bros' trials and tribulations.

You know the initiative is taking hold when the women (and men) in the office have brought home the information to their spouses, partners, brothers, fathers, and sons. Some of these men have joined Movember and are growing mustaches too.

Last week a staff member brought her 12-year-old son to the office. He proudly shared that he knew all about Movember because his teacher was growing a mustache for the cause. It is important for all men, young and old, to talk about and take action when it comes to their health.

Learning is step 1

The first step is to learn about diseases that have a big impact on men, and how those conditions can affect men’s physical and emotional well-being. Men, and those who care about them, need to:

• Recognize the signs and symptoms of the disorders
• Learn about screening tests for early detection
• Make lifestyle changes to prevent or manage illnesses

Helping men take action is step 2

To move someone to action means changing his or her attitudes and beliefs. With its resources, open discussions, and support, the Movember movement can help men change their behaviors and improve their health by motivating them to:

• Go to regular well-care visits
• Perform appropriate self-exams
• Discuss health risk factors with their healthcare provider
• Eat a balanced diet
• Exercise regularly
• Stop smoking
• Limit their use of alcohol

At HealthEd, we apply the Health Belief model in educating our staff about men’s health issues. In the process of developing newsletters to share with staff, family, and friends, we consider the basic constructs of the model:

• Perceived susceptibility
• Perceived severity
• Perceived benefits
• Perceived barriers
• Cues to action
• Self-efficacy

Some people think that because we are a healthcare marketing agency, the staff is more aware than others of men’s health and health concerns in general. And that the men of HealthEd are being proactive in their care. While our men may have a heightened awareness of the issues, Movember can reinforce what our staff already knows and inspire them to take action for better health. 

Ide Mills 
Senior Vice President, Health Education
HealthEd

Why Nurses Need to Share their Knowledge

Why More Nurses Need to Get Social

Nurses are the largest group of healthcare professionals and the largest group of health educators. Because of their prominent role, they’re often needed to interpret and share their vast knowledge, yet they fall behind other professions in terms of adopting new communication technology. Having worked in an academic cancer center for several years, I observed many nurses doing innovative work without ever sharing their knowledge and expertise outside the walls of the center.

Since 80% of patients use the Internet for health information, patients clearly are expressing a need to enhance the education provided by their care team with medical information and advice from the Internet. What better way for patients to learn more about their health condition than to read a blog post or a tweet from their own nurse?

Although 87% of nurses reported using the Internet for professional use, only 11% were on Twitter. How can we encourage more nurses to move beyond being online information consumers to being the online information leaders and creators that they are in the clinical setting? Nurses have the opportunity to assume a leadership role by sharing timely and accurate health information with patients through social media rather than just responding to content that patients bring to them. 

Who has the time to blog and tweet?

We all know how hard nurses work, and the last thing we want to do is add one more task to their already demanding job description. Social media needs to be viewed as an important patient teaching tool, not as one more thing to do. Phil Bauman, an early adopter of social media in healthcare, compiled a list of 140 healthcare uses for Twitter, many of which actually save nurses’ time. Saving time is especially important in the midst of healthcare reform and a nursing shortage, given that the role of nurses is being expanded to include more patient education, with a larger emphasis on prevention. Because of the immediacy of information, the wide reach, and the ease of use, social media is a necessary tool for nurses to foster a more prevention-focused health dialogue and promote a positive disease-management experience. 

A forum for sharing best practices

Aside from patient education, social media offers new and interesting ways for nurses to interact, to share experiences, and to compare and contrast lessons from their work experiences. Social media applications allow nurses to reach a wide range of colleagues from different disciplines and more quickly than previously possible. Nurses who use social media can attest to the benefits. Some have talked about having previously felt isolated within small clinics before they joined Twitter or found nursing blogs. The resulting interaction helped them to feel more connected to the greater nursing community. Being part of that community involves sharing knowledge. If more nurses took this approach, the online nurse community would be a truly great forum for learning and supporting one another.

I think the best way to sum up social media resistance is with a quote from nursing informatics educator Terri Schmidt: “Social media is like White Castle. You either love it or you hate it, but in the end, you’ll develop an appreciation for it.” I would hope that the long-term health benefits of social media are greater than those of White Castle, but after your first taste of either one, it’s very easy to get hooked.

 

Tara Rice
Manager, Health Education
HealthEd

ExL Digital Pharma West Wrap-up: Social, Strategy, and Lots of Measurement

I wasn’t able to attend this year’s ExL Digital Pharma West event, where HealthEd’s Susan Collins presented “Return On Education” with Susan LaRue of Amylin Pharmaceuticals. But I listened in through Twitter, and when our Susan returned to the office, I caught up with her for the conference highlights:

Jeff: A lot of people retweeted that health literacy statistic you mentioned in your presentation. One-third of people have basic or below basic health literacy skills?

Susan: Yes, it comes from the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, which assessed 19,000 adults nationwide. It means that pharmaceutical marketers need to ensure their communications follow health literacy principles so everyone understands how to take his or her medicines properly. 

Jeff: What else opened people’s eyes at the conference?

Susan: Watson Pharmaceuticals shared a really interesting social media case study for its “I Am Generess” digital campaign. It just launched an oral contraceptive. Watson is about the 14th to the market and cannot differentiate based on cost or efficacy. They decided to differentiate themselves based on a social media campaign instead.

Jeff: What is the hook?

Susan:  Women who fill or refill their prescriptions earn virtual coins. They can use the coins to donate to a charity for women in need. The highly integrated campaign includes Web, mobile, Facebook, quizzes, and games that let women earn more coins. There is a sense of community as women see how the money has been donated overall.

Jeff: So you can do social media in pharma, but you have to be strategic.

Susan: Watson decided to take the risk to do this campaign. It’s worth checking out.

Jeff: Give us some of the top themes you took away from ExL.

Susan: One of the biggest themes was the increased emphasis on taking an integrated approach to pharma marketing. Rather than thinking of a digital solution as a “cool, shiny new toy,” several speakers emphasized understanding the unmet needs of the audience and from there building an integrated marketing strategy to meet customers' needs.

Jeff: Because digital, social, mobile, and offline tactics all need to work together.

Susan: Yes. I especially liked what I heard from Vladimir Castillo of Bristol-Myers Squibb. He said digital doesn’t support other channels; it can actually enhance and elevate them.

Jeff: Your presentation was about measuring return on educational programs. I saw quite a few heated tweets about analytics.

Susan: There were many more presentations than last year on the power of data and how to use it to refine and justify digital marketing programs. I heard speakers say that digital marketers are not always savvy in analytics and often bring their analytics team in too late. Yet digital is facing increasing pressure to demonstrate ROI.

Jeff: I have to smile. Digital is all about testing and measuring!

Susan: That came across very loud and clear.

Jeff: Big finish here. What was the most interesting stat of the conference?

Susan: Bob Allen of AstraZeneca said that 85% of consumers surveyed believe pharma has a role to play in educating them about their medicines. That makes me, as a health educator, smile.

HealthEd and Amylin ExL Digital Pharma West 2011

View more presentations from HealthEd

 

Jeff Greene
Director, Digital Strategy
HealthEd

 

 

 

Susan Collins, MS, CHES, RD
Senior Vice President,
Health Education Research and Development
HealthEd

The Evolution of Patient Marketing

As any pharmaceutical marketer knows, it's getting more challenging to market products in today's ever-evolving landscape. The days of solely detailing doctors about drugs and expecting a trickle-down effect to patient adoption and adherence are in the past. Even marketers content with a traditional direct-to-consumer approach of heavy media and advertising have to reconsider their strategy in light of the needs of their audience and the dynamic environment in which they now find themselves. The landscape has evolved, and so should our marketing practices.

The New Landscape

It's no surprise to many of us that over time a significant power shift, from doctor to patient, has taken place. Patients have more of a voice in their care than ever—whether it is asking questions about treatment decisions or selecting their doctor.

I once read that most patients' first visit with a doctor comes from a word-of-mouth referral. That's a powerful incentive for physicians to want to keep their patients satisfied and returning for repeat visits. Physicians also tell us that they want to know what goes on with their patients outside the doctor's office. Are patients taking their meds? Are they dealing with the side effects?  Do they believe the doctor made the right decision to put them on the drug in the first place?

Patients have more of a voice in treatment decisions than ever before—and they need to. Let's take a look at some of the reasons why:

• Changes in healthcare reform put financial and other responsibilities on patients
• Confusion persists about the "value" of branded drugs vs the ever-growing availability of generic options
• Patients see frequent media coverage scrutinizing drug manufacturers and their practices; are their meds to be trusted?
• Patients' "plates" are fuller, they are caring for themselves, as well as their aging parents and other loved ones
• Plus there is the simple fact that patients (including me, as well as the Baby Boomer generation) are not willing to grow old gracefully

An information-seeking and more empowered patient has evolved. According to the Pew Research Center, people of all ages use the Internet, and gathering health information is one of the top three activities, along with using e-mail and conducting searches. Add to that statistic the fact that the percentage of Internet users 55 to 66 has increased from 9% to 43% in just the past two years.

Patients are going online to rate the drugs they are taking, just as they might give four stars to a book they purchased on Amazon.com. They are hungry for insights from others like them who have been on the same road to wellness. Today more than 1,300 drugs have been rated on www.patientslikeme.com with comments from real patients that note the frustrations and beliefs they have about the drugs they have taken—everything from how efficacious a drug was to the reasons the patient stopped taking it. These facts all point to the need to respond to this more connected patient through the communication channels that they prefer.

So What Is a Marketer to Do?

The simple truth is that marketers need to do more. Traditional pharmaceutical consumer marketing that focuses only on awareness is not enough. Creating a waiting room brochure is not enough. We need to take a cue from our friends in consumer packaged goods that seek to develop brand loyalty and relationships with their customers. Research shows that patients want to have more of a relationship with drug manufacturers. I propose that what is needed is to offer more of a supportive relationship for patients, rather than simply marketing to them. Providing patients with tools, skills, and knowledge to empower and support them through their treatment experience with the brand. Using behavioral and adult learning models, health education insights, patient journey frameworks, and marketing acumen to educate and support patients.

At the end of the day, we all want better outcomes for patients. Investing in relationship marketing initiatives that help patients to successfully start and stay on treatments for an optimal brand experience also helps pharma marketers to differentiate themselves in genericized markets and provide value beyond the pill. Patients who have their needs met, are educated about the reasons to take the drugs, and know what to expect are better advocates for other patients and for the doctors who made that important recommendation in the first place.

Maybe we shouldn't look at this evolution so much as a challenge but rather as an opportunity that will help us better meet the needs of all healthcare stakeholders—patients, providers, and everyone involved. I for one am excited about the opportunities and being a bigger part of the solution.

Brad Aufderheide, MPH
SVP, Strategic Services
HealthEd