Archive for June, 2008

27
Jun

Changing physician behavior

By bdellerin 1 Comment
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Within3I previously posted on physicians and social media. Well, here’s one more data point that shows they are embracing social media. At the recent ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology) conference, Within3 (a global, invitation-only community of scientists, physicians and researchers) conducted a face-to-face survey with conference attendees and asked two questions:

  1. Do you trust professional networking sites to collaborate/connect with peers?
  2. Do you use the web to search or collaborate with peers?

They found that 86% do in fact trust these sites and 89% use the web for search or to collaborate with peers. About 66% of respondents were from Europe and Asia. Curious how the responses would change with a U.S. only physician audience. The findings underscore a change in physician behavior that we should follow.

24
Jun

Let the games begin

By bdellerin 0 Comments
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I haven’t posted in longer than I had intended - too much work and too much vacation. But I’m back and interested in talking about what is going on in healthcare and gaming. I had no idea!

A few months back I met Doug Goldstein at a conference and he introduced me to the idea of games and health through his company Gaming4Health. Check out his site which is rich in material on this exciting space. Then in late May I read that the venerable Robert Wood Johnson Foundation had awarded $2 million in grants to fund 12 research studies through its Health Games Research program. Intrigued I wanted to learn more.

The theory is that employing interactive games as part of the treatment paradigm in certain health situations may lead to significantly better outcomes. The funded studies will use a range of technologies to gauge the effectiveness of digital games on improving health. Here are some examples:

  • Stroke patients will use Wii and EyeToy to assess whether they help in regaining motor skills. (University of South Carolina)
  • Children with cystic fibrosis will test a breath biofeedback video game to determine whether it improves their self-administration of inhaled medicines, engagement in respiratory exercises and awareness of their respiratory status may also be useful for children and adults with asthma and other forms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. (University of Vermont, School of Medicine)
  • Type 2 diabetics (18 and older) will use online mobile minigames to learn how to estimate carbohydrates and calories in food portions, which should help them to attain better blood sugar control. (University of Washington, School of Medicine)
  • College freshmen will participate in BloomingLife: The Skeleton Chase, a mystery that unfolds over eight weeks, and incorporates physical and mental challenges. It is an alternative reality game designed to promote physical activity and healthy lifestyles. (Indiana University, School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation)
  • Overweight children (9 to 17) will use either Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) or a pedometer to test which leads to better outcomes such as enjoyment, body mass index and body composition. (Maine Medical Center)

What fertile ground for pharma - and everyone interested in health outcomes - to explore. The idea of combining fun with health makes all the sense in the world…if it works.

10
Jun

Physicians continue to get social

By bdellerin 4 Comments
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SermoI always wake up to NPR, but the other morning was a bit startled by what I heard. I’m used to the announcer thanking Medtronic as a sponsor, but Sermo? Yes, Sermo, the rapidly growing physicians’ social network which now boasts over 60,000 subscribers. Interesting that they are using the radio waves to reach more doctors, certainly a signal that they are looking at all types of media to promote the site and acquire more users before competitors gain traction.

Other doctor sites include the recently launched Physician Connect from Medscape/WebMD, SpineConnect for spine surgeons, Within3 to foster collaboration between physicians and researchers. And I just learned about MedTrust Online. According to the Arizona Republic, this is going to be a social-networking site for oncologists and others who treat cancer that provides easy access to pertinent medical literature, clinical trial information, treatment options and a wealth of other data. The paper reported that “the strategy is to create a link between willing docs and drugmakers.”

Manhattan Research sponsored a webcast last week to discuss findings from its newly published Taking the Pulse v8.0, an annual report that surveys online physician trends. (More on the study in an upcoming post). They see the online social networking space exploding as more physicians learn what is out there and become comfortable holding clinical discussions online. The moderator pointed out, “It’s important for biopharma to keep an eye on these trends, pharma marketing especially…on the physician side, some of the early companies are getting aggregated data about what physicians are talking about. They can respond to what physicians are saying.” Definitely seems very Pharma 2.0.

05
Jun

Diabetes and the rise of the Patient Opinion Leader

By bdellerin 2 Comments
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There is no doubt that diabetes is one of the most searched and discussed health topics on the web. According to Manhattan Research, over 24 million U.S. adults researched diabetes online in 2007. I wanted to get a better handle on the diabetes blogosphere so I turned to the source: Kelly Close, CEO of Close Concerns. There is no one who knows more about the diabetes landscape than Kelly, a former Wall St. analyst and Type 1 diabetic, whose company publishes Diabetes Close Up for industry and Diatribe for patients.

Kelly CloseKelly sent over a vetted list of quality diabetes resources, many blogs among them. I must admit to being overwhelmed by the sheer number on her truncated list. But to me it underscored the arrival of a new phenomenon that I believe is here to stay: the Patient Opinion Leader. These are individuals who are well-versed on their disease and are influencing thousands of others with their writing. I’m not saying that KOL’s (Key Opinion Leaders, usually refers to physicians) are on the wane, but industry should start paying more attention to this new generation of influencer. I’m planning to profile many POL’s over time in all different specialty areas. Here are a few I thought were particularly interesting in diabetes.

Kerri MorroneKerri Morrone is one of the pioneers of the diabetes blogging movement having founded Six Until Me in 2005. She started the blog to connect with “all the people who were living with this disease” like she had been since age 6 (hence the blog’s title). She describes life with diabetes on a personal level but is equally adamant that diabetes is only part of what defines her. She is a freelance writer and editor, member of the dLife editorial team, and founder of a second blog, co-authored with her cat, called LOLDiabetes to add levity to living with diabetes day in and day out.

Continue reading ‘Diabetes and the rise of the Patient Opinion Leader’

02
Jun

Searching healthcare

By bdellerin 0 Comments
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One of the most frustrating parts of Google-ing for health information is actually finding anything that is relevant when 100,000 search results are returned. Enter OrganizedWisdom, one of several companies trying to make healthcare search easy, targeted and informed.

OrganizedWisdom HealthOrganizedWisdom is the first human-powered, doctor-guided search service for health. So what does that mean? That knowledgeable physicians in collaboration with expert health guides like nurses, patient advocates and caregivers research and create each piece of health information found on the site called WisdomCards. I interviewed co-founder and company president Unity Stoakes for more in-depth information about the company as well as ways pharma could engage.

BE: Unity, you and Steve Krein (co-founder and CEO) are both successful entrepreneurs having built several technology, Internet and media companies. Why take on healthcare?

US: As we mapped out our plans and thought about the industry sector we wanted to devote our energy to next, we both were adamant that our next company accomplish one major objective: help a lot of people.

As we looked into the health care sector in greater depth a few years ago we were stunned by the gap in health services that leveraged the power of Internet technologies or social media. It was like having a crystal ball, because it was just so obvious how to help more people using these technologies that every other industry sector has been using for years. There’s a huge opportunity for innovation, entrepreneurs, and consumerism to make dramatic improvements to our health care system and most of all the chance to help a lot of people.

And because neither Steve nor I had health backgrounds, it gave us the opportunity to look at the challenges of healthcare with a fresh perspective.

BE: You mean you’re not jaded like the rest of us lifers? Just wait! In the meantime, what do you hope OrganizedWisdom can accomplish?

US: We believe it shouldn’t be a time-consuming process to quickly find links to the very best resources when searching for health information. We are solving this problem by adding the wisdom of trained expert search guides and physician reviewers to the power of algorithmic-only search tools and social bookmarking sites. This human-powered model helps us deliver far superior health search results by eliminating search index spam from low-quality websites, links to duplicative libraries of licensed health content or potentially dangerous web sites. Continue reading ‘Searching healthcare’