Archive for the ‘Public Health’ Category

Ricki McCarroll
Ricki
McCarroll

Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch Every Day

Friday, January 20th, 2012

…culture eats strategy for lunch every day. Now isn’t that the truth? Especially in PR where we put our logical strategic plans up to bat with popular culture daily and hope/wish our audiences hear and pay attention to our message.

Last week I had the pleasure and honor to attend the Health Affairs journal release event at the Capitol Hill Hyatt. This month’s journal was completely based around the #Diabetes pandemic in the United States and internationally with noted scholars such as Dr. Richard Kahn and K.M. Venkat Narayan.

My top take-a-ways:

Top three concepts:

  • Start looking at health from a wellness and prevention standpoint instead of looking at health through the lens of disease and illness
  • There is a need for community programs to combat pre-diabetes
  • Recognize a dual approach needed to combat diabetes – lifestyle and medications.

Top three quotes (who says researchers aren’t pithy?):

  • “Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch Every Day”
  • “Lack of social support is as lethal as cigarette smoking”
  • “WIIFM = What’s In It for Me”

The keynote speaker, Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, shared her take on health care in the U.S. and said we need to put the fun back into our health care. Her speech set the bar high for the remainder of the day as panelists began their presentations.

One panel in particular raised many questions and discussion about ‘The Potential for Lifestyle Changes and Weight Loss.’ The three panelists, Kenneth Thorpe, Richard Kahn and Mohammed K. Ali (not to be confused with the former boxer, Muhammad Ali) first presented their respective papers and then fielded questions from a very engaged audience. With the short presentations by Kenneth Thorpe and Mohammed Ali both individuals covered the results from the National Diabetes Prevention Program with positive language. Dr. Kahn threw some proverbial ‘cold water in the hot tub’ (his words) by reminding the audience to take the results with a grain of salt.

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Posted in Chronic Disease, Disease Awareness, obesity, Public Health
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LukeDickinson
Luke
Dickinson

Why I like the FDA’s New Draft Guidelines

Thursday, January 5th, 2012

The FDA released draft guidance last week which should prove helpful to pharmaceutical manufacturers, marketers and communicators. The draft guidance, Unsolicited Requests for Off-Label Information about Prescription Drugs and Medical Devices, addresses questions received by consumers around off-label drug or medical device use. It makes clear that manufacturers are able to provide information to requests on off-label uses, received both on- and off-line, without falling foul of regulations.

The draft guidelines allows for companies to respond to unsolicited requests for information on off-label use that are posted by consumers on public forums – including social media, websites, online forums, and in-person public events and meetings – as well as questions received in a non-public medium – via direct email, letter, phone call or fax. The key is that these must not be solicited questions, defined as any inquiry which results from one of eight possible scenarios or prompts led by the manufacturer.

The FDA advises that any response made to an unsolicited question must a) be made directly to the individual posing the question, and b) must only address the specific questions posed.

This means that even if an individual posts a question on off-label use to a company’s public Facebook wall, the company can only respond directly to that individual (via email, phone or letter) not publically to the post. The most that can be posted publically is information on how an individual can directly contact the company to have their specific question privately addressed.

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Posted in FDA, Health 2.0, Health Care Industry
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Anthony LaFauce
Anthony
LaFauce

Why I dis-like the FDA’s New Draft Guidelines

Thursday, January 5th, 2012

After reading the FDA’s ‘guidance’ I really have to say I am not impressed with this effort. To be honest it looks like a cookie cutter response to questions our industry has had for the past 4 years. I am truly moved by the fact the FDA opened with a disclaimer stating that the guidance provided was not the end-all-be-all to help communicators communicate.

FDA’s guidance documents, including this draft guidance, do not establish legally enforceable rights or responsibilities.

The document has some difficult to digest information regarding the difference between “non-public” and “public”. This means that the document fails to address if information is shared with a patient in a non-public area and that information becomes public. This is very disturbing if you consider the FDA’s guidance that information should be pushed to off label users in ‘private’ communication tools.

The document also has a small example, in line 189, which focuses on how information of a medical nature is presented to potential patients while on a website. The guidance suggests if a website talks about a various disease or condition AND includes items located in a header or menu that a refers to another disease condition a person can misconstrue this as a company endorsing a products use and the company is at fault.

If a firm sets up a website that enables viewers to read prepared standard responses for the firm’s products that are generated from prefixed pull-down menus naming various disease states, including any standard responses related to off-label uses for the firm’s product, resulting requests for off-label information would be considered solicited. Moreover, if this website makes it possible to use search terms to generate standard responses that go beyond the scope of the product information being requested, including off-label use information, resulting requests for and responses to such a search would be considered solicited requests.

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Posted in FDA, Health 2.0, Health Care Industry
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Ricki McCarroll
Ricki
McCarroll

From One Beautiful Snapshot to Another

Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

When I tell my friends back home about my typical week living and working in D.C. they all assume it is glitz and glamour and posh parties at embassies. Which on Facebook (where all true reality lives) pretty much looks like the truth.

What no one sees is the behind the scenes action it takes to make things look so ‘effortless’ from snapshot to snapshot.

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself…

The story really starts last Wednesday at the first ever Excellence in Nursing Awards put on by Washingtonian Magazine. The awards ceremony was held at the House of Sweden (a.k.a the Embassy of Sweden) to recognize those nurses and nurse practioners doing exemplary work in their field. The event was an incredibly beautiful and appropriate tribute to those in the nursing community doing great things everyday to better our health services here in the District.

The room was filled with family members, colleagues and supporters of these unsung heroes. I even found myself becoming slightly misty eyed as the awards were given out and the recipients’ stories were told. From HIV/AIDS specialties to diabetes, each individual honored received a roar of applause and warm encouragement from the audience. The energy in the room alone reminded me of the reason why I joined the health and science industry to begin with: to make a difference in a life.

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Posted in Awards, Excellence in Nursing, Public Health
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Anthony LaFauce
Anthony
LaFauce

Where Are We Going?

Thursday, November 17th, 2011

Yesterday Maggie Fox (@maggiemfox) wrote a great piece regarding an American Heart Association study about the current trend in obesity and the health of Americans. The piece was based on a 10 year study that looked at the trending health and weight issues we face. The study lists a series of issues America will face due to this epidemic. I use the term epidemic because things like increases in high blood pressure, diabetes and of course heart diseases are forcing us into a national crisis.

When everyone hears about health issues the cost of health care becomes top of mind. When I do, and I’m sure as an Air Force brat, when Maggie does as well, it also brings national security and national resources to mind. Over a quarter of all young adults between the age of 17 and 24 are physically unfit to serve. I know a percentage of those people have physical reasons why they can’t serve but the number is still staggering. As a former United States sailor it absolutely shakes me to the core to think of what will happen if this trend in Americans’ health continues.  Will we not be able to protect our borders, man our ships or send humanitarian aid to countries when they have natural disasters like typhoons or earthquakes?

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Posted in Chronic Disease, Community Involvement, Disease Awareness, Health 2.0, Health Care Industry
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Ricki McCarroll
Ricki
McCarroll

Ladies…You Know Lung Cancer Kills Right?

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

From a girl who came from the West Coast where the ban of smoking cigarettes in work places was enacted in January 1995 and banned in restaurants three years later, it was a shock to move to the D.C. area and find you could still smoke indoors in some establishments directly outside The District.

My doe-eyed, granola crunching, outdoorsy, non-smoking California self was definitely taken aback at the amount of smokers around me. Even some two and a half years later, it still shocks me on my morning commute to find myself walking behind someone to the Red Line (D)Re(a)d Line who has a cigarette in their hand at 7:30 in the morning.

Naturally, with a health communicator’s strategic mind, I began to tally the amount of men and women I witnessed lighting up during my morning jaunts to work between the hours of 7:30 and 9:00 a.m.

My findings? Interestingly enough, the majority of the people I witnessed were women around the ages of 30-55 strutting in pencil skirts and pumps with a lit cigarette balancing in their hand. To be frank, I was shocked when I tallied the numbers. Really, ladies? After all the facts we know about tobacco?

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Posted in Cancer, Disease Awareness, Lung Cancer Awareness Month, Public Health, Women's Health
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