“This house believes patient care will be enhanced through pharma’s involvement in social media“. So read the title of the debate I was invited to take part in at the PIPA Annual Conference 2010 on 5th July.

I was especially excited to take part in this debate, not only because of the opportunity to participate alongside an excellent panel of experts on the subjects of pharmaceutical companies, social media and regulatory affairs – Andrew Spong, Klynn Alibocus, and Sam Temple-Scotton. Even more so because the debate was hosted by PIPA, the Pharmaceutical Information and Pharmacovigilance Association.

In their own words, ‘PIPA is the professional organisation for individuals who are involved in the provision and management of information and those involved in the fulfillment of regulatory requirements relating to drug safety‘. In other words, the debate was hosted by regulatory, medical information and pharmacovigilence professionals. The fact that such an organisation placed this important topic on its Annual Conference agenda is an indicator that the questions being asked by pharma about how to engage through emerging two-way channels such as social media are being taken seriously.

At Creation Healthcare, one of the most enjoyable, if sometimes challenging aspects of our work is when we get to bring together internal stakeholders from across a pharmaceutical company – communicators, marketers, legal and medical colleagues, to develop healthcare engagement strategies embracing emerging channels. And from my experiences of this I know that amongst visionary pharmaceutical companies it is possible for these colleagues to strategise proactively together to achieve real health outcomes through innovative use of social media and other emerging channels.

Sarah Dunnett, Senior Medical Affairs Manager at Baxter Healthcare and PIPA President, chaired the debate and asked for a pre-debate vote. 42 conference delegates agreed with the motion (albeit some with caveats) whilst 21 disagreed, to at least some extent.

Not one to miss the opportunity to encourage healthy discussion about healthcare and social media, Andrew Spong kicked off the debate, playing devil’s advocate as he argued against the motion and highlighted some favourite objections including adverse event reports.

I followed with a brief outline of seven examples of pharma’s involvement in social media, outlining how each example demonstrated the potential for enhancing patient care. I included some of my favourite examples such as Johnson & Johnson’s Health Channel on Youtube, UCB’s partnership with PatientsLikeMe, Boehringer Ingelheim’s sponsorship of a Tudiabetes video, and AstraZeneca’s engagement with healthcare professionals through doctors.net.uk.

Sam Temple-Scotton then supported the case against the motion and pointed out that pharma is struggling to keep up with the level of change in digital channels.

Finally Klynn Alibocus made some excellent points about the breadth of ways in which pharmaceutical companies can enhance patient care through social media, drawing the debate away from marketing to consider other areas including clinical trials recruitment.

In the discussion that followed between the panel and PIPA delegates, some key issues were debated including trust, transparency, responsibility, stakeholder partnerships, business process change, and resourcing. Many of the most challenging issues were raised and debated. From my perspective, there was general agreement about points including:

• Pharma is generally mistrusted and this makes social media engagement difficult; but social media might play a role in enhancing trust through transparency
• Given the amount of discussion taking place by patients using social media about health issues, pharma has a responsibility to get involved
• Regulatory constraints make it difficult, but not impossible, to plan proactive engagement
• Avoiding adverse events reports by not listening to social media conversations is not the answer
• Successful social media engagement may require changes to the way pharma operates

Finally, a post-debate vote revealed the extent to which we had convinced PIPA delegates: after all the discussion, just 39 delegates agreed to any extent with the motion – a reduction of 3 – whilst 23 disagreed. On the face of it, it appeared we had done more to convince pharmacovigilence colleagues not to support pharma’s role in social media! But all in all I believe the debate was healthy, timely and relevant and I hope will encourage some of the PIPA delegates to take a proactive approach to working through some of the challenges with colleagues in their businesses. I am still reassured that 63% of pharmacovigilence professionals believe pharma’s role in social media will enhance patient care.

I understand that a more comprehensive report on the debate will be published in PIPA’s journal, PIPELINE. In the mean time, feel free to tweet me with your comments at @EngagementStrat.

How healthy is your digital engagement strategy? World-class ‘olympian’, or ‘gasping for breath’? We’ve put together a quick and fun tool for you to self-diagnose the health of your digital engagement. Just answer the seven questions below and see how your score adds up.

We recommend that you take this simple self-diagnosis check whether your focus is on product development, policy, corporate communications or marketing, and whether you are in prescription-only or over-the-counter medicines, medical devices, patient treatment or care. You will discover just how healthily you and your organization are engaging through digital.

A healthy digital engagement strategy allows you to connect with patients, healthcare professionals and other health stakeholders in a way that is relevant to each of them, and to achieve results aligned with business goals. Not only that, it allows you to discover which activities achieve the best outcomes so that you can continually improve effectiveness.

7-Step Self-Diagnosis

Simply answer these seven questions, and add up your score. Each question is worth up to 2 points. Find the closest response and score yourself accordingly. It’s entirely subjective and just for fun, so you can keep it to yourself or feel free to tweet me your score or comments (@EngagementStrat)!

1.

Who are the key stakeholders you want to engage? Patients, carers, healthcare professionals, government? Do you have a strategy in place to engage each of them online?

Award yourself between 0 and 2 points:
(2) I know all stakeholder groups and we have strategies for engaging each of them online.
(1) I know who our stakeholders are, and we connect with some of them online.
(0) I don’t know whether our stakeholders are online.

2.

Are your digital engagement activities and campaigns aligned with specific business goals? Are you able to measure the extent to which these goals are being achieved through digital activities?

Award yourself between 0 and 2 points:
(2): I understand our business goals; we have digital engagement strategies closely aligned with them. I am able to identify digital outcomes and their contribution to specific business goals.
(1): Our digital activities are designed in line with business goals, but I am unable to identify specific business goals that have been achieved through digital engagement.
(0): Our digital campaigns are not set up to demonstrate results against business goals.

3.

Is your digital engagement strategy an integral part of a broader business, communications or marketing strategy? Are you integrating digital engagement with your offline marketing or engagement activities such as advertising, sales, policy activities, clinical trials?

Award yourself between 0 and 2 points:
(2): Our digital engagement strategy is fully integrated with our business, marketing  or communications strategy. We plan for the online impact and opportunity with every offline activity and do not operate ‘digital strategy’ distinctly from non-digital engagement.
(1): Some planned integration exists between our online and offline engagement activities.
(0): We have a digital strategy that is completely distinct from our other engagement, marketing and communications strategies.

4.

Thinking about your key therapeutic areas, do you know what topics or words Internet users in your territories are searching for? And when they do, do you know what they find?

Award yourself between 0 and 2 points:
(2): We proactively analyse search activity and keywords around our key therapeutic areas, and I know what online resources we compete with for Internet users’ attention. We have a strategy to use search to connect with the right people at the right time.
(1): I know who are competitors are online, but we do not proactively analyse search behaviour or develop strategies based on search.
(0): I do not know what people search for around our key therapeutic areas or what they find when they do.

5.

If your digital engagement strategy includes a website, do you know how and why people find the site? Have you included clear goals you want visitors to achieve, and are you monitoring user journeys that achieve these goals?

Award yourself between 0 and 2 points:
(2): Our websites have clear outcome goals, we track user journeys and use this information to improve outcomes.
(1): I have access to key analytics data for our websites, but I am not able to align this data with tangible outcomes or goals from user journeys.
(0): We do not measure user journeys on our website.

6.

Is your approach to social media proactive or reactive – are you deliberately starting social media conversations, or listening and responding? Whichever approach you choose, do you have a plan in place to monitor and respond to social media events in a timely way?

Award yourself between 0 and 2 points:
(2): I know why we use social media; we engage in dialogue and we have an approved plan in place for managing conversations and outcomes. We are able to identify the results of social media engagement in terms of business goals.
(1): We use social media to connect with people, but we do not proactively listen to conversations outside our chosen channels of engagement.
(0): We use social media channels to make announcements; or we do not get involved with social media.

7.

Think about internal stakeholder engagement. Are your colleagues from legal and medical departments envisioned about your digital engagement strategy? Are you talking with company employees about social media and how to use it responsibly, in professional as well as personal capacity?

Award yourself between 0 and 2 points:
(2): Colleagues across all relevant departments understand the role of digital engagement in achieving our objectives, and we have a clear policy on social media engagement that colleagues understand and find helpful.
(1): We work with colleagues in different departments to plan proactively for social media engagement.
(0): We do what we have to, to gain approval from legal and medical colleagues before launching digital campaigns.

How did you score?

OK, add up your scores from the above and see which category you fit.

11-14: Olympian

Congratulations! You have pioneered, envisioned colleagues, and have a healthy approach to digital engagement. You understand that it’s a competitive environment, and you have measures in place to engage in a way that is continually relevant to stakeholders. You are achieving demonstrable business results, and you know exactly why.

You already know that in the world of digital, new platforms for engagement constantly emerge and user behaviour is unpredictable. When you need a partner who you can trust to give you independent advice about keeping your digital engagement strategy in top shape, contact Creation Healthcare. Like you, we care more about your outcomes than your digital agency.

6-10: On the mend

It’s likely that there are some areas where you are very strong. Your overall digital engagement health might be hindered by one or more areas of weakness. You probably know what needs to be done to change things for the better and you are close to having a digital strategy that delivers continually improving results.

By addressing those areas you know need work, you will move on towards Olympian level. At that point, your digital engagement activities will enable you to compete effectively online, achieving planned outcomes against business goals. To get you to that next stage, you might want to speak with an independent consultancy who can help you to make those improvements. Contact Creation Healthcare to discuss how we could help.

0-5: Gasping for breath

First, the good news: from the questions above you will probably have identified the areas you need to focus on to improve things. From a healthcare point of view, you are either in very poor health, or you are newborn – just starting out in digital engagement.

Look at the areas where you scored lowest, and select one or two to focus on. Don’t try to change everything at once. When you feel that you need extra help or advice, Creation Healthcare will guide you through the steps to healthy digital engagement. Contact Creation Healthcare at any time for a confidential discussion.

If you would like an ally in the ever-changing world of healthcare engagement, or a second opinion on your self-diagnosis, talk with Creation Healthcare.

When it comes to supporting patient care in a relevant and engaging way through digital technologies, there is a huge amount of potential yet to be exploited. Last year we wrote about ‘serious games’ for health, and Creation Healthcare’s Susi O’Neill outlined how technology can be used to make healthcare fun.

Serious games can provide a refreshing change for patients with long term diseases when it comes to their treatment, which could be especially effective in treating children with chronic diseases. That’s the thinking behind Bayer’s DIDGET™, a blood glucose meter designed for children with diabetes. As Sandra Peterson, Head of Bayer Medical Care explains:

“Up until now, blood glucose monitors have been created with adults in mind. This product was inspired by a parent of a child with diabetes, to directly address the challenges facing kids with diabetes and their parents. Bayer’s DIDGET meter offers play with purpose to encourage kids to regularly monitor their blood glucose and begin to view regular testing as fun.”

Connecting with games systems

The DIDGET™ system connects directly to Nintendo™ DS and DS Lite gaming systems, awarding points for good testing habits. After testinjg, children can transfer points to their Nintendo™ games devices and redeem them for new characters, costumes or mini-games.

Bayer’s DIDGET website includes a demonstration of the product and how it works

John Gregory, Professor in Paediatric Endocrinology at Wales School of Medicine, Cardiff University explains why this is important:

“One of the biggest challenges facing parents of children with diabetes is the constant struggle to instil the habit of regular blood glucose testing…”

“Bayer’s DIDGET meter can help ease the parent/child tension that testing often creates by adding an element of fun and rewards to the routine. Because it is designed with children in mind, Bayer’s DIDGET meter can transform a child’s blood glucose testing experience from something they have to do into something they want to do.”

Initially available only in the UK and Ireland, DIDGET was launched in Vienna at the Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) last September and is expected to be available in the US, Croatia and Slovenia shortly. In the US, the FDA (the US regulator) cleared the product last December.

What patients are saying

The launch of DIDGET in the UK has generated much industry and media interest, and a great many blog and social media posts mentioning the product. We carried out some simple research into social media conversations about the product, and found most of them to be from observers in technology companies and industry observers.

What we really wanted to know was what diabetes patients using the product thought of it. Naturally, with the product aimed at children aged between 5 and 14, we didn’t expect to find a highly active community of UK bloggers amongst target users. We did, however, find discussions amongst parents of children with diabetes based outside the UK expressing disappointment at not being able to obtain the product in their markets.

Amongst UK social media activity, it was interesting to learn that the product is not only being used by children. Analysing social media conversations amongst UK diabetes patients, we found comments such as this one, from a 23-year old diabetes patient living in England:

“The other meter I’ve been using at work for a few month now is the Bayer Didget. This meter is similar to the contour (uses same sticks) and I like it as you have the option to mark each test with a pre-meal, post-meal and small book marker on the system. Tests are quick (5secs) and don’t need much blood, so I prefer it to most others.”

The same user also comments on the game:

“The didget works with the Nintendo DS, it comes with a game and the tester can be plugged in the DS and good test results will reward players. The game is average, but I reckon it’d be good for getting kids to control their levels.”

An interesting observation from these comments is that it is the tester’s ease of use that appeals to the adult user of the product. Perhaps there’s a lesson here for medical equipment manufacturers: design for children, and adults will appreciate your products too.

When we announced the Healthcare Engagement Strategy Award winners in January, we awarded PatientsLikeMe the ‘Changing Healthcare Award‘ for having the engagement strategy we felt was most likely to change healthcare. Speaking with PatientsLikeMe co-founder Ben Heywood, it was clear that there was much more to come from the team behind what must be the world’s largest and fastest-growing set of specialist patient communities.

This month we’ve taken a look at new developments at PatientsLikeMe, including some exciting partnerships with pharmaceutical companies.

Novartis gets closer to patients

Earlier this month, PatientsLikeMe announced a new collaboration with Novartis to create a community for organ transplant recipients. It’s a brand new community and already includes over 600 patients.

Novartis CEO Joe Jimenez outlines why connecting with patients online is important for shaping the way Novartis works:

“We need to be closer to patients to understand their experience and their needs. An online experience allows patients to open up and share in a more personal and frank way.

“Our commitment to supporting this transplant community will shape the way we do our work, and ultimately help improve transplant patient outcomes now and in the future.”

This is the 12th disease community for PatientsLikeMe, and the second PatientsLikeMe community supported by Novartis who have already been actively involved in the multiple sclerosis (MS) community. In 2008, Novartis were amongst the first pharmaceutical companies to use social media for clinical trial recruitment when they engaged PatientsLikeMe’s MS community to boost registrations for a study.

UCB looks for adverse events amongst epilepsy patients

On the day we named the Healthcare Engagement Strategy Award winners, PatientsLikeMe announced a new epilepsy community in partnership with biopharmaceutical company UCB. In its first two months since then, the community has already grown to over 1,000 patients.

The partnership includes an interesting proactive patient safety initiative designed to capture adverse events associated with approved UCB epilepsy therapies, and report them to the FDA (Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. regulator).

Iris Loew-Friedrich, UCB’s Executive Vice-President, Chief Medical Officer says that the partnership with PatientsLikeMe will help UCB to understand patient needs:

“We believe this community will be a source of information that will allow us to better understand people living with epilepsy and may help us design clinical programs that incorporate real-world patient needs and experiences in a measurable way.”

Pharmaceutical companies: how to connect with patients

Pharmaceutical companies have many reasons to engage patients – for clinical trial recruitment; to learn about the needs of patients; to learn about use of their products; to educate patients about their treatment options – the list goes on.

Working in partnership with existing or emerging patient networks can be an excellent way to rapidly reach thousands of relevant patients online.

If you are looking to make the most of the Internet to engage patients, Creation Healthcare can help you to identify and develop suitable partner relationships, plan for their success, measure results and understand the strategic impact of the partnership.

Contact Creation Healthcare if you would like a confidential discussion about your patient engagement needs.

Information about regulation is at the top of pharma marketers’ wish list when it comes to digital marketing, according to research conducted by the organisers of DigiPharm Europe 2010 amongst delegates of last year’s conference.

Planning Europe’s largest pharma marketing conference

Creation Healthcare is working with the organisers of DigiPharm Europe 2010 conference, which takes place 28 September – 1st October in London and is set to be one of Europe’s primary events for digital engagement practitioners in pharmaceutical companies. We’re working together to plan a conference packed with highly relevant and current content, where new insights are shared and ideas are stimulated.

Surveying past delegates

As part of the research and planning process, delegates from last year’s successful DigiPharm Europe conference were asked about what matters to them most right now.

73% of respondents came from pharmaceutical and biotech companies, so the responses provide a good snapshot of what is on the mind of people in these industries.

Regulation is the biggest challenge

The outstanding majority of challenges faced by participants are in the area of regulatory, legal and compliance issues. Specific regulatory challenges identified included:

• Concerns about lack of regulatory guidance
• Fears about compliance issues
• Uncertainty about what is possible within regulations

Other areas participants highlighted amongst their current challenges included envisioning internal colleagues about digital; measuring return on investment; and enabling two-way engagement through platforms such as social media.

Most admired pharma companies

Respondents also identified organisations they considered to be taking an innovative approach in digital marketing and online communication, that they would like to hear about. Amongst these were some of their peers in healthcare and pharmaceutical companies, including Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer.

Insights from outside pharma

Respondents also indicated they would like to hear insights from outside of the world of pharmaceuticals. This request certainly rings true with our own experience at Creation Healthcare, where we are seeing an increasing interest in lessons that can be learned from the strategies of other brands and organisations that are pioneering digital engagement.

Could you share your experiences?

We’re looking for people in pharmaceutical companies who are solving the challenges faced by pharma marketers, to speak and share their experiences with peers. If that sounds like you, why not get in touch and find out more about how you could get involved?