While digital marketing solutions and social media projects became the center of attention in pharmaceutical communication recently, it is also important to notice the growing popularity of everything mobile. Below is a list of reasons why pharma companies should invest considerable time and energy into developing effective, creative health-related mobile applications.
The mobile trend is here to stay: Based on a recent study by Comp TIA, half of all physicians use smartphones for professional purposes and the use of mobile applications is steadily growing as well. According to another study, mobile technologies can be utilized especially in healthcare. There are many factors that influence mobile adoption on different markets. These factors include “consumer adoption, clinical adoption, evidence of efficacy, costs of deployment, and regulatory climate.”
High demand for healthcare and drug-related information online: Patients are looking to find valuable information about different treatment options, drugs and medical conditions online. According to a recent survey looking for health-related info online is the third most common activity of internet users. Maybe the biggest issue when it comes to treatments is medication adherence, which can be managed with easy-to-use, always available mobile devices in a very cost-effective way.
Mobile devices during clinical trials: A recent article emphasized the role mobile apps could play in the entire process of clinical trials. “The recruitment of patients, transmission of clinical trial records, and the reporting of adverse events in a prompt and accurate manner” can be all managed with creatively developed mobile applications.
Mobile apps can help communicate with HCPs more effectively: Tight budgets, digital solutions and the demand for time-efficacy resulted in big number of layoffs in the pharma industry with decreasing number of sales reps conducting in-person visits with physicians. “The significant decline of sales force presence has created an educational void for prescribers.” The need for a more effective educational method and better understanding between pharma and healthcare professionals could be managed with mobile apps created specifically for medical education and delivering prescriber information.
Information to bigger groups and institutions: With mobile applications it is easier to deliver a big amount of data to a wider audience in a manageable way. This is especially important when it comes to communicating with hospitals, healthcare organizations, patient or physician communities. Pharma can utilize this when providing information about products, treatments and different conditions.
(Source: The Digital Health Corner)
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The End Of Janssen’s Psoriasis 360 Facebook Page
Janssen was the first to use “post-moderated comments”, meaning that these comments were only checked – and pulled if necessary – after they were posted. This was definitely a progressive way of handling comments on Facebook, something that became mandatory after new Facebook policies were introduced in August last year.
So does this mean that pharmaceutical companies don’t have a place on Facebook? Does this mean that monitoring is a daunting task that cannot be completed? I’m sure a lot of people in the pharma industry would say so and use the closing of Psoriasis 360 as a proof to their case. But is it fair to point fingers and use a previous best practice as a bad example, or even as an excuse to stay away from social media? Can an award-winning campaign become a “failure” overnight? I surely hope the answer is no. If anything people responsible for the campaign should be praised for not letting the situation get out of hand and for addressing difficulties on time.
The end of Psoriasis 360 should not serve as a bad example, but as a great one for the proper way to handle social media risks and still keeping the main goals of social engagement and patient education in the limelight. Janssen made its announcement available on the landing page of Psoriasis 360 where they inform their fans about the reasons behind their decision. But they go a little further too, they point the patients in the right direction to get information by mentioning the websites and Twitter accounts of the Psoriasis Association, the Psoriasis Scotland Arthritis Link Volunteers and the University of Manchester Skin Research as accurate and useful resources. The company also decided to take a little time before closing down the page entirely to make sure its message gets through to patients. If anything, this process should be a best practice example of how and when to end a social media campaign.
And before anyone accuses me of being too positive and forgiving, this event should also work as a catalyst to generate more ideas to better manage the task of monitoring social platforms, the handling of comments coming from the audience and keeping alive successful campaigns while staying in line with regulations.
(Source: PMLiVE.com)
Posted by gaborgy on March 22, 2012
https://h2onlinehu.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/the-end-of-janssens-psoriasis-360-facebook-page/