News roundup

Watch our discussion about the relevant stories of the week. From left to right in the video:

Brad Einarsen: Director of Digital Insight
Alok Bhardwaj: Director of Business Development
Maura Hanley:  Group Account Director

ePocrates Report: The Rise of the Digital Omnivore, M.D.

A new report was released today by ePocrates that talks about the HCP Digital Omnivore. These are HCPs that use all digital channels to stay connected and informed. The main points in the report:

Platform usage for professional purposes (not personal):

• 97% use computer
• 78% use smartphone (68% daily)
• 34% use a tablet (27% daily)

Apple is still dominant (but Android is making inroads):

• Tablets: 81% iPad, 9% Android, 10% other
• Smartphones: 65% iPhone, 23% Android, 10% Blackberry, 2% other

There is a lot more data in the report itself, definitely worth downloading.

For mobile views into EHR data, MobiHealthNews has a story.

Source: ePocrates

AMA Article on EHR and Device Usage

An article in the AMA Medical News shows doctors’ mobile device usage a little different from the ePocrates story above. This article focuses on EHR systems, which had the lowest usage with mobile devices in the ePocrates study, and shows that doctors use the following devices to access their EHRs:

• 75% desktops
• 25% laptops
• 10% tablets (iPad or other)
• 6% smartphone

Also in the article are a few other tidbits:

• 62% of doctors owned a tablet computer in 2011
• 83% of doctors use desktop computers as their primary means to access patient records

This data correlates well with the ePocractes data. It is from the 2012 National Physicians Survey by Sharecare/the little blue book.

Source: AMA News

ANA Survey on Social Platform Usage

A survey of client-side marketers shows what social channels are most popular. This is for all categories, not just health marketing.

• 96% Facebook
• 89% Twitter
• 70% branded mobile apps
• 67% QR codes
• 53% search engine marketing (text ads)
• 49% LinkedIn
• 41% non-video ads
• 33% Pinterest
• 25% video ads

And, just to show that traditional digital isn’t being left behind:

• 95% websites
• 91% email

ROI is a big topic for these marketers. The ones that measure are:

• 90% SEM
• 89% website
• 88% email
• 39% Twitter retweets
• 30% Facebook likes

The full report is available for ANA members.

Source: BrandChannel

PEW Report: Rise of the Connected Viewer

Consumers are using their mobile technology while watching television. This study by PEW shows what types of actions they take and what triggers those actions. Of smartphone owners who use their device to connect to the internet:

• 37% used their phone to check whether something they heard was true
• 35% used their phone to visit a website that was mentioned on television
• 32% used their phone recently to exchange text messages with someone else who was watching the same program in a different location

Source: PEW Internet

What Are Marketers Spending on Social Media?

73% of marketers expect their social media budgets to increase over the next year, but the increases will be modest. The chart below shows the number of marketers who fall into the deciles:

Also from eMarketer:

• Social Media Usage Plateaus Among Marketers
• Developers Turn to Facebook to Promote Apps
• Brands Ignore Negative Social Buzz at Their Peril

Source: eMarketer

IAB Mobile Ad Formats Add Interactivity and Keep User in Control

Five new ad formats have been formalized by the IAB that work more seamlessly with current mobile devices and technologies:

• A mobile filmstrip that allows the user to swipe across thumbnails of brand images and videos both on smartphones and tablets. The unit effectively brings the brand assets into the ad rather than requiring a jump — something especially important in mobile.
• The Pull unit that lets the user do a window shade-like drag maneuver on a banner to pull in more full-screen information, again without a jump to a site.
• The Adhesion Banner that keeps a banner ad attached to the mobile screen despite scrolling.
• The Full Page Flex unit that is specifically for tablets, which can adjust creative experiences for both landscape and portrait modes and can accommodate a full range of multimedia assets with respectful use of bandwidth.
• The Slider unit that enables the user to swipe a mobile banner laterally to pull in a full-screen ad experience.

Related news: IAB tells the FCC that mobile privacy is different from desktop.

Source: MediaPost Blogs

WorldOne Acquires Sermo for Undisclosed Amount

WorldOne, a healthcare research firm specializing in HCP insights has acquired Sermo, the largest HCP social media property. This adds 130,000 US HCPs to the WorldOne roster (not taking into accounts duplicates). The press release talks about how the membership will improve its current offerings but is silent about future plans for Sermo.

Source: WorldOne Press Release

Report Ranks Pharma High on (Traditional) Online Communications

This story covers a report about global corporate communications that ranks a number of pharma companies highly. Roche, Novartis, BASF, AstraZeneca, and Pfizer are mentioned by name.

Source: PharmExec

CDC’s Zombie Apocalypse Social Case Study

The CDC made a big splash with its Zombie Pandemic Preparedness guide in 2011. This case study shows how it used social media to spread the word and get more CDC awareness in the process. The main points:

• Jump on the bandwagon
• Keep the tone consistent throughout your content
• Provide visual content to get your point across
• Give your audience something to take offline
• Enable social sharing of your content
• Inspire user-generated content
• Provide extra-special content for ardent admirers
• Be prepared to shift gears

Source: Marketing Profs

Sanofi’s Data Design Diabetes Innovation Challenge Winner

Sanofi has run two contests to gain ideas and solutions for the Diabetes community. This winner is a community-based solution.

The winning proposal is to create n4a Diabetes Care Centers, which the nonprofit and its partners, the National Minority Quality Forum and the National Health Index, entered into the competition (n4a stands for National Association of Area Agencies).

Source: MM&M

2012 Consumer Health Apps Report

The folks at MobiHealthNews have issued a (for purchase) report on consumer health apps in the Apple App Store.

In April of this year there were already more than 13,600 relevant consumer health apps, and that number does not include the thousands of miscategorized and foreign language apps found in the Health & Fitness and Medical categories of of Apple’s App Store. As we have done for almost three years now, the MobiHealthNews team sifted through Apple’s health-related categories and placed each consumer health app, one-by-one, into more than 80 subcategories of our own for our 2012 definitive, quantitative analysis of consumer health apps for Apple’s iPhone.

Source: MobiHealthNews

FDA Roundup

• FDA survey: “Health Care Providers’ Responses to Medical Device Labeling” was scheduled to complete in January. A new budget document seems to indicate they received 1,248 responses to the survey. No indication about when the report will be released.
• FDA presentation from DIA 2012: Regulatory Primer. Worth a look for the description of common triggers for letters.

Source: FDA Website