Digital Pharma – Byte-sized roundup
pharmafile | January 29, 2010 | News story | Medical Communications | ABPI, digital pharma, patient information, pm society
In this week’s roundup: PM Society to recognise Digital Media Pioneer, ABPI expands Twitter use, DH accredits health information and Facebook fights flu.
Later today the PM Society’s annual Advertising Awards will take place in London and this year the gongs on offer include the inaugural Digital Media Pioneer award. The Society aims to tweet award results as they happen using the hashtag #pmawards.
Meanwhile the Society’s digital working group is putting the final touches to a series of digital principles that will be submitted shortly to the PMCPA. The UK industry’s Code of Practice regulator is then expected to review and amend them as it sees fit, before publishing them in a Q&A format.
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I’ve already mentioned that the ABPI are on Twitter in the shape of director (trust) Andy Powrie-Smith, but he’s not the only one from the UK industry body using it – though so far remains the most active.
Senior figures at the ABPI with official Twitter accounts now also include newly-promoted commercial and communications director Alison Clough, medical and innovation director Allison Jeynes-Ellis and director general Richard Barker.
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Following on from yesterday’s post on patient information, social media and pharma, I see the UK’s Department of Health has a new scheme to accredit healthcare information.
Set up in November and managed by Capita, the Information Standard entitles organisations that meet its criteria to place a quality mark on their information materials so people searching for health information can easily identify it as coming from a reliable, trustworthy source.
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A US hospital is using social media in its fight against H1N1 and seasonal flu. The Children’s Hospital Boston’s Flu Fighters! Facebook application allows users to tell their friends they got the H1N1 or seasonal flu vaccine and encourage them to do the same. The app also provides information on influenza, including a flu vaccine locator – as part of a tie-up with the Department of Health and Human Services.
The application is part of the HealthySocial project, founded two years ago by Ben Reis of the Children’s Hospital Informatics Program.
“Social networks have tremendous potential to do good in the world,” says Reis. “By leveraging existing social connections, people can spread positive health behaviors and attitudes amongst their friends and loved ones.”
Reis and his team are working on a range of free social apps that allow users to collaborate with their friends to encourage better health.
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Dominic Tyer is web editor for Pharmafocus and InPharm.com and the author of the Digital Pharma blog. He can be contacted via email, Twitter or LinkedIn.
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