Posted by Ellen Hoenig Carlson on Fri, Aug 21, 2009 @ 07:40 AM
Guest Post by Eileen O'Brien (eiobri@yahoo.com and @EileenOBrien)
Eileen is passionate about using the web and social media to advance healthcare communications. (And she is currently looking for a new interactive job...) Here's why she believes that Pharma should pay attention to Wikipedia:
Whether you agree or disagree with the concept of Wikipedia and the accuracy of its information, it's a huge player in the world of healthcare and deserves attention.
1) Physicians and consumers use Wikipedia for health info
Nearly 50% of US physicians going online for professional purposes are visiting Wikipedia for medical information according to Manhattan Research. This is a significant increase over the 28% reported in 2008.
And 36% of US consumers searched for health info on Wikipedia according to Rodale's DTC study.
Manhattan Research found Wikipedia is even more popular in Europe, with two-thirds of physicians online using the site as a medical resource monthly. It's also a top health destination for European consumers: "And consumers want companies to take a role in making sure that Wikipedia content can be trusted - the majority of online European consumers expect that pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device companies monitor Wikipedia pages about their products." Manhattan Research, Cybercitizen Health Europe v8.0
2) Wikipedia dominates search engine results
Wikipedia appears in the top 10 results for more than 70% of medical queries in four different search engines, according to a study in July's Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. Consumers and HCPs will increasingly be driven to Wikipedia due to its dominance over the search engine results.
3) Ensure that Wikipedia provides appropriate drug information and links to brand sites
Pharma companies (or their interactive agencies) should review all product and condition-specific treatment articles on Wikipedia sites across various countries. After this assessment, if there are errors or factual information is missing, there are ways to ethically update Wikipedia.
A designated person should declare a conflict of interest (which means you are contributing to Wikipedia in order to promote your own interests or those of a company) and then suggest changes to article talk pages. An Insider outlines the appropriate steps.
Ongoing monitoring of changes to Wikipedia articles should also take place.
4) Employees can edit Wikipedia resulting in bad PR
Abbott and Astra Zeneca both received negative publicity when employees used company computers to delete negative information on their drugs from Wikipedia articles.
Next Steps for Pharma
- Since anyone with an Internet connection can edit Wikipedia, there should be a corporate policy about Wikipedia and other wikis. Employees should be educated about Wikipedia and the appropriate process if they see inaccurate information.
- Companies may want to have one person ‘officially' responsible for monitoring Wikipedia on behalf of the company; this person should declare their intentions on Wikipedia. After a thorough review of Wikipedia content on the company and brands, create a plan regarding initial corrections and ongoing maintenance.
- Measure the traffic that comes to the company and brand websites from Wikipedia.
Posted by Ellen Hoenig Carlson on Mon, Jun 15, 2009 @ 04:21 PM
Now that the Games for Health Conference is over, I've had a little time to reflect on possible implications for Pharma and Healthcare Marketing.
Please read my second guest blog at PharmaExec Blog for the Seven Key Implications I see for Pharma and Healthcare as we move into the "virtual" future of healthcare marketing. Implications range from prevention, diagnosis and awareness to adherence and training.
If you're new to the concept of health games, based on the conference, health games seem to generally fall into six areas:
- Exergaming-The largest category of health games, led by Wii products. Continued growth is expected by building stronger social community and competitive features, adding virtual and new workouts to keep it fun, and expanding mobile synergies.
- Brain Fitness or Braingaming focuses on cognitive training aimed at improving or maintaining mental function; expected to grow significantly over the next five years.
- Emotional Well-being and Mental Health is an emerging healthgame category based on cognitive therapy and interventions to improve coping skills, insight and resiliency. There is a new game being developed by Energy Inside & MIT Media Lab called "Lemonade". Through interactive social media, commonsense reasoning psychology and a learning recommendation engine, Energy Inside will deliver micro-interventions (pep) that are intended to shift mindset when a person needs it most.
- Healthy Behavior games rely largely on the principles of behavior change and modification, often targeting chronic conditions, such as diabetes, HIV, or other challenges such as ‘eating healthy'. Examples: Humana, The Partnership For An HIV-Free Generation and Warner Brothers called Pamoja Mtaani (also considered a Causegame), or games marrying brand building and education, which are often called Advergames. A few examples in Pharma include "Don't Blow It", developed for Nasonex by Edelman, and Mirapex for Restless Legs Syndrome.
- Rehabilitative or Therapygaming. Examples include Guitar Hero III to help upper-extremity amputees, games to help Motor Rehabilitation, Attention Deficits and Schizophrenia, burn victims and motivating compliance of postoperative breathing exercises.
- Training Through Immersive Learning Simulations and Virtual Worlds to improve performance and quality. Friday's blog outlined the advanced learning simulation and technology developed by Virtual Heroes for emergency and acute training and care. Other simulation and virtual worlds were applied to dental surgery, and nursing education.
Other good articles covering the Games For Health Conference include: Boston Globe's Video Games Boost Patient Rehabilitation which highlights the work of a team of Johns Hopkins' University engineers who modified the Guitar Hero for people with amputated hands, 5 Ways Gaming May Transform The Future Of Healthcare & Wellness by Rohit Bhargava of the Influential Marketing Blog, and Drawing Parallels of Web 2.0 and Exergames by Biray Alsac.
Health Games are quickly emerging as a new way to bring fun, engagement and interaction on a human level. Anyone have a good example of a health egame they'd like to share?
Picture: courtesy of PharmExec and Wikipedia
Posted by Ellen Hoenig Carlson on Fri, Jun 12, 2009 @ 02:22 PM
Wow! The Games for Health Conference has been very exciting--
It's early days in health gaming, but you can feel the momentum building and its potential to impact consumer health and behavior.
To read about day 1, here's a guest blog I did today for PharmExec. Also for tweeters: #G4H09
More to come...blog 2: potential thought starters for Pharma...