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Erica
Anderson

Digital-To-Consumer the New DTC?

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

According to the Manhattan Research Group, more than 60 percent of U.S. adults turn to the Internet as a support tool in healthcare and disease management. The study, which focused on how consumers use Internet technology for health and treatment decisions, used a sample of 8,714 U.S. adults.

Acne, adult ADHD, Fibromyalgia and Cancer are in the top condition groups for online searches. Next  Thursday, April 16th, Manhattan Research, along with presenters from Johnson & Johnson and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will present the findings in full at “How New Media Changes Pharmaceutical DTC Advertising.” The event will include insight on:

  • The Obama Administration’s Impact on Pharma and DTC Marketing
  • The Latest Research on Improving Print and Television Advertising – Practical Tools to Maximize Your Dollars
  • Optimizing Patient Engagement through an Integrated Marketing Mix

Check back next week for more information on what the study found and how the Internet is expanding the definition of Direct-to-Consumer as we know it.

Erica Anderson, Senior Digital Strategist

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Erica
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Unthinking Television and Thinking Mobile

Monday, March 30th, 2009

On Thursday, I spoke on a roundtable at George Mason’s 6th Annual Visual Cultural Symposium. The topic this year was called “Unthinking Television,” and I was asked to discuss what “screen life” meant to me.

The other participants on the roundtable – including a video game producer and a social scientist of Second Life – came from diverse backgrounds, to say the least. I was there to speak about my experience as a mobile reporter for MTV’s Street Team ’08. (Read: Young Reporters, New Tools and Political Reporting in Harvard’s Neiman Report).

The question posed to the roundtable was this: What is screen life?

For me, when I hear the word “screen” I immediately think of the screens that I grew up with. First it was the television screen, and of course the big screen for movies. Now, in my early adulthood, it is the mobile screen that dominates my life.

Tomi T. Ahonen, a blogger for Communities Dominate Brands, recently created a comprehensive report on the impact of mobile. He offered this bit of information: the world population is 6.7 billion people. Four billion of which have phone subscriptions, which means over 60 percent of people in the world have access to a phone. Also, 17 percent, or about 680 million people, are subscribing to get news on their phone.

At the GOP National Convention last September, I had the opportunity test out this medium on the Convention floor. I was one of the only reporters on the floor with live mobile-to-web streaming capabilities. My impromptu broadcasts were met with confusion and curiosity. The reactions reflected the monumental brink – and shift in communications, that we are standing before.

So what is screen life? For one, mobile screens and technology provides us all with immediate connectivity – much more than sitting at a stationary computer because we are filming/tweeting/texting from locations beyond the console. The dawn of the World Wide Web was ground breaking because it allowed us to connect instantly to people with common interests. But as the phenomenon unfolded, internet users became immersed, perhaps to a fault, because many substituted internet interaction with real interaction. Now, with mobile tech and the traveling screen, I wonder how that connectivity and interaction will unfold, in a way that supports an informed society.

Erica Anderson, Senior Digital Strategist

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Erica
Anderson

Health Care Reform to Dominate New Agenda

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

On Tuesday, February 24th, President Barack Obama laid out the state of the economy. In the speech, he described a “blueprint” for the future and focused on three major areas: energy, health care and education.

The President called the cost of health care crushing and said health reform would be a vital to the success of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which is now law.

The main focus of reform will be to lessen the cost of health care and expand coverage to the some 45 million uninsured Americans. President Obama tied the cost of coverage to the economy, saying, “it is one of the major reasons why small businesses close their doors and corporations ship jobs overseas.”

Other areas of focus in the new Administration’s health care reform effort are;

  • Investment in electronic health records
  • Seeking a cure for cancer
  • Making the “largest investment ever in preventive care”

President Obama went on to say there will be competing ideas as to how to achieve these goals. In an effort to bring different expertise to the table, the White House will hold a meeting next week with individuals representing businesses, doctors, health care providers, Democrats and Republicans. The team at Spectrum will follow the developments and post it on this blog for you.

At the end of the speech, President Obama made one final, if not compelling, plea to Congress.

“…if we come together and lift this nation from the depths of this crisis, if we put our people back to work and restart the engine of our prosperity, if we confront without fear the challenges of our time and summon that enduring spirit of an America that does not quit, then some day, years from now, our children can tell their children that this was the time when we performed, in the words that are carved into this very chamber, “something worthy to be remembered.”

For a full transcript of the speech, click here.

Erica Anderson, Senior Digital Strategist

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The Health 2.0 Divide

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

Last night I went out to Rockville, Maryland for Social Media Club DC. I was armed with an interest in the panel discussion about Health 2.0 and was curious to hear what the panelists had to say. What I found was a vibrant discussion and several lively debates about where Health 2.0 was going, but no single prescription for how to interact with patients in the Web 2.0 world.

Health 2.0 is defined as “participatory health care.” As the Wall Street Journal put it, “the social-networking revolution has come to health care.”

At the SMC DC event, there seemed to be a divide between old pros and young-blood ideas. One participant described himself as part of the group that built the Internet and suggested those looking for Health 2.0 solutions focus on what he called “URL equity,” which for most health care information searches, is based on Google’s Algorithm. He added that the real problem is the “discoverability of health information.”

A former Revolution Health strategist and NIH scientist mentioned the Journal of Internet Medical Research, the National Library of Medicine and Medline Plus as places for consumers to go. “It’s your tax dollars at work,” she said.

Communication professionals in the audience were happy to learn that such resources exist, but a few didn’t particularly like the idea of using them – arguing that though the data is objective, it is not very consumer-friendly.

Panelist Joel Selzer (@jbselz), who launched a Physician’s Trusted Network called Ozmosis, referenced an article one of his bloggers, Dr. John Bahn, wrote about Social Media Trends to Watch for in 2009. I looked it up following the panel and found some interesting bits of information.

The most unique point Bahn made, in my humble opinion (imho), was about how physicians are recognizing social media tools as a resource, not a distraction. He made note of the growing interest they have in mobile apps for “referencing medication doses and practice management resources.”

For more info on SMC DC, check out their Web site and Twitter fed.

Erica Anderson, Senior Digital Strategist

Posted in Health Care Industry, New Media, Technology
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Health Care Reform Still Priority

Monday, February 9th, 2009

Many experts believe there won’t be enough air space for health care reform this year – despite campaign promises from now-President, Barack Obama. With the economic stimulus, it would appear other policy initatives, inparticular health care, would be overlooked.

But according to an Obama Aide and reported by The New Republic’s Health Care Blog, health care will be a “central focus” to Obama’s first budget proposal.

“The official didn’t specify precisely what that meant: Would the administration be asking for funds to make sure every American has insurance, or just a portion? Would there be major reforms of the way medical care is delivered? But even with that ambiguity, the statement seems to signal that Obama still takes health care seriously and hopes to pass significant legislation in the next year.”

Erica Anderson, Senior Digital Strategist

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Wikipedia On Daschle’s Case

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

Tom Daschle’s Wikipedia page was recently updated. The news was not favorable for the former South Dakota Senator and nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services.

“On January 30, 2009, while his nomination for the position of HHS Secretary was still awaiting Senate confirmation, tax issues came to light involving income and the use of a limousine and chauffeur that Daschle failed to properly disclose on his income-tax statements for the years 2005 through 2007, as well as charitable contributions he improperly claimed as deductions.[2][3][4] Daschle reportedly paid back taxes and interest in the amount of $140,167 as a result.[5][6]“

Despite the bad news – and the fact that this is the second Obama nominee to have tax issues (Timothy Geithner for treasury secretary), Daschle is stil likely to be confirmed. Daschle is also the recipient of claims that he did not report a consulting income of $88,333, in 2007.

Currently, Wikipedia is the most used wiki on the Internet. According to a national survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, more than a third of American adult internet users (36%) consult Wikipedia. Although the platform has been criticized in the past for being inaccurate, a new TNS Global study, titled “Digital World, Digital Life,” found that trust in Wikipedia’s content has been steadily increasing.

Erica Anderson, Senior Digital Strategist and Chris Rottler, Junior Digital Strategist

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