News roundup

July 18th, 2012 in Breaking News by Brad Einarsen

Listen to our discussion about the trend for users to go “mobile-only”.

Family Caregivers Over-Index for Online Activity

It’s well-known that for some conditions the caregivers do much more research than the patients. Alzheimer’s springs to mind, but there are many more. This PEW report looks at caregivers’ behavior online and is a great resource for anyone who needs to talk to both e-patients and e-caregivers.

30% of US adults care for another adult, child, or both with significant health issues
79% of these caregivers have access to the internet (this is higher than the general population by PEW numbers)
88% of those with internet access look up information for their loved one
They over-index across the board for health activity in social channels

“Caregivers use the internet to navigate the frontier of home health care,” says Susannah Fox, an associate director of the Pew Internet Project and lead author of the study. “Caregivers not only care for their loved one’s physical and emotional needs, but their information needs as well, and the internet is a key resource.”

PEW Internet

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Interactive Chat Benchmarks

Vendors can sometimes be in a position to provide compelling, anonymized, benchmarks that others cannot. In this white paper BoldChat provides some anonymized benchmarks for consumer-focused chat, both user-requested and proactive:

Chatters are 7.5x more likely to convert than visitors who don’t chat. Up from 4.1x in 2009. This number goes up to 8x if you only consider proactive (not reactive) chatters.
On average, 1.7% of visitors engaged in chats, unchanged from 2009.
Chatters don’t mind being interrupted. The average percentage of website visitors who accept proactive invitations to chat is 8.5%. Up from 6% in 2009.

As AstraZeneca showed click to chat can be done in Pharma. The benchmarks in the report can help you design the best possible solution for your needs.
For deeper insight, see our blog post on live chat for pharma.
BoldChat (vendor)

PDUFA V Requires the FDA to Provide Internet Guidelines

Inside the recently approved PDUFA V bill is a requirement for the FDA to provide guidance on Internet and social media promotion to industry.

Internet Promotion: Requiring FDA to issue a guidance document regarding the promotion of FDA-regulated medical products using the Internet, including through social media, within two years. FDA has been promising to issue social media guidance for more than three years, and it appears that Congress – like industry – has grown tired of waiting.

JD Supra – legal database

Why Facebook Users Unlike Brands

Once you have Facebook fans, you need to continue to engage to get your message out, but if you post too often be prepared for fans to hit the “unlike” button. The US stats show:

46% Information was published too often
46% The information available was not interesting
39% The brand was no longer of interest to me
22% The brand published information I did not appreciate
14% Information was not published often enough

In related news:

AllFacebook Blog

Social Proof on Social Media

Social proof is a well-known psychological phenomenon whereby individuals’ choice is influenced by the perceived preference of others. This eMarketer story, based on a study by Ipsos, shows that one in five US consumers would buy a brand based on a friend “Liking” that brand. This passive form of recommendation is possibly the most important aspect of Facebook marketing for brands.

eMarketer

Women More Likely to Go Mobile-Only for Social Activities

Men and women are willing to go “mobile-only” for different tasks at different rates. Women tend to be willing to go “mobile-only” more often than men.

eMarketer

Asthmapolis Secures FDA Clearance for Inhaler Sensor

One of the first new products to tightly integrate mobile technology with therapeutic products, the Asthmapolis sensor works with most inhalers and sends data directly to the user’s smartphone. The companion app sends the data to central servers so that generalized data is available for epidemiologists have the raw information needed to perform better research.

“In addition to driving better patient-physician communication about asthma management, the tool also gives physicians the ability to quickly identify how patients in their population are doing and take steps to help patients get their disease under control,” Van Sickle stated in the recent FDA announcement. “Our mission is to make it easier for patients and their physicians to do a better job of managing asthma with less effort than traditionally required.”

See the full product detail on the product website.

Mobi Health News

Twitter Makes Mobile Web Ubiquitous… But Will it Increase Usage?

So Twitter has released a much streamlined version of their mobile web experience. Good for them. The question is: will this increase mobile web usage?

In other Twitter news, can they become profitable without losing their user base?

C|net

Internet leads channels in growth, still behind in spend

Yet more evidence that digital is taking over from traditional channels.

Internet advertising grew by 12.1 percent, the most of any media channel, but still only accounted for 2.6 percent of the quarter’s total ad spend (equivalent to outdoor advertising’s spend share). Meanwhile TV dollars rose by 2.8 percent and ate up 61.9 percent of total ad spend.

The fun side effect of a small(ish) market is that changes show large growth numbers. This example illustrates how you eat an elephant… one bite at a time.

AdAge

Happtique releases guidelines on how it will grade health apps

Happtique is creating a service that will certify health apps so that users can filter the thousands found on the app stores and focus on the ones that are trustworthy. It remains to be seen if the certified branding will be worth the review, but anything that cuts through the clutter and helps good medical apps get noticed will be useful. This article highlights the most interesting points in the guidelines document:

“The app is based on one or more credible information sources such as an accepted protocol, published guidelines, evidence-based practice, peer-reviewed journal, etc.” — similar in tone to the FDA review of claims
“The date/source of the app’s content is provided through an ‘About’ section (tab, button or equivalent).” — and other key information should be put here as well as this improves trust
“For any app derived from a third-party source that does not contain the original source’s complete content, the app provides a link, reference, or other appropriate method to enable the user to locate the complete content.” — this could be problematic as links out of apps are distracting
“Information in any app that constitutes advertising is denoted by the message ‘This is an advertisement’ or equivalent.” — brand messages will need to be carefully controlled
“The content of an app that is intended primarily for use by laypersons is designed and written in a way that is readily understood by the target audience (e.g., appropriate use of technical terminology).” — this makes sense, but engaged e-patients may be more knowledgeable than Happtique will give them credit for

Mobi Health News

SMS-replacement gives HIPPA accountability

Startup ZipIt is promoting an SMS-replacement app that will allow message senders to verify when a message is delivered and opened. This allows for HIPPA-compliant messages to be sent to patients.

It remains to be seen whether message confidence is enticing enough for patients to download and install yet another app on their smartphones.

Mobi Health News