Habits of Physicians Posting for Professional Purposes

The following information is gleaned from

Kantar Media Healthcare Research Insights

Kantar Media is a pharma research company offering insights to drug manufacturers. The information also reflects directly back to MD usage of social media. 

Many physicians still are reticent to use social media. If you have not looked at social media in the past two years you would not know about the uptick for #hcsm. Users in all fields of medicine and health businesses, including device manufacturers, pharma, laboratories, and government. (FDA,HHS,CMS,WHO and more use social media for marketing and information purposes.

While most use Google to search for subjects you may notice that significant number of replies yield twitter, facebook, or Google + pages.  It is not at all unusual to see twitter handles and facebook page links on professional web sites.  If you want to remain strictly professional Linkedin has grown explosively in the last 12 months.  Building a profile on any of those sites or opening an about.me page will yield results.  About.me  is an eye catching site with creative graphics. It is much more interesting to read than a curriculum vita.

Kantar Media Healthcare Research Insights  

Uncovered some some specific insights about physicians and their professional social network usage. When it comes to posting on social media in a professional capacity, there are certain trends we can notice. We know that a doctor sharing an article is much more likely to be embracing new medical technology or drugs.

One of the trends we're noticing is that professional social networks are surpassing other platforms in terms of popularity and content shared. Our study results show that 58% of physicians that write/post on social networks for professional purposes choose to write/post on professional social networks vs. consumer or medical association social networks. What does this mean for advertisers? Well, potentially you as an advertiser should establish more of a presence on professional networks.

If you sell new pharmaceuticals to doctors, there's definitely some good news from the March 2015 edition of the Sources & Interactions™ Study. Physicians that write/post on social networks for professional purposes are more likely to be new drug adopters. Is social media advertising part of your media plan? It should be: 67% of respondents are saying they prefer to adopt drugs as soon as they are released or after a few others have tried it successfully. The fact is that medical professionals using professional social media are among the most receptive to new pharmaceuticals and you don't want to miss out on that group.

Sales teams should embrace these findings as well. Among this demographic using social media, 83% of them say they see sales reps—10 percentage points higher than the total physician population that see sales reps. It's clearly evident that social media needs to be a tool you utilize to reach the newest drug adopters. 

The Sources & Interactions™ Source is a detailed examination of doctors’ online and mobile activities, e-detailing experience, and exposure to (and evaluation of) information sources including traditional and emerging media, pharma reps, CME, convention and more. The study is conducted every six months and targets more than 3,000 physicians annually across 22 specialties, exploring their media preferences and habits. Sources & Interactions was designed to help marketers and their agencies cost-effectively allocate resources to their overall promotional mix, and provide publishers with specific insight about where their offerings fit into physicians (and other healthcare professionals’) information inventory.tudy

Sources & Interactions, March 2015: Medical/Surgical Edition

Kantar Media’s Sources & Interactions™ Studies offer detailed research on healthcare professionals’ online and mobile activities, e-detailing experience, and exposure to (and evaluation of) information sources including traditional and emerging media, pharma reps, CME, conventions and more. Sources & Interactions helps marketers and their agencies cost-effectively allocate resources to their overall promotional mix, and provide publishers with specific insight about where their offerings fit into physicians’ (and other healthcare professionals’) information inventory.

The Medical/Surgical edition is conducted every six months,with brand new data available now!

A Boost for Mobile Health

Parallel 6 Appoints David Lee Scher, M.D., Pioneer in Digital Health Technology, as its Chief Medical Advisor to Scientific Advisory Board - 


Parallel 6, an enterprise mobile technology company, has appointed David Lee Scher, M.D. as the Chief Medical Advisor of Parallel 6's Scientific Advisory Board. As a practicing cardiac electrophysiologist for more than 25 years and an experienced clinical trial investigator, his expertise makes him a knowledgeable resource to Parallel 6's Clinical Reach, an end-to-end technology solution for clinical trial recruitment and retention. His dedication to merge healthcare and technology is recognized worldwide as he travels globally to speak about the necessity of mobile health technologies, as outlined in his blog 'Five Reasons Why Mobile Technology Needs Clinical Trials.' - 



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The use of mobile health apps has not accelerated as quickly as industry pundits predict.

Mobile health apps can be classified as

1. Consumer oriented for accumulating data for evaluation of fitness,reporting on exercise routines. These are wearable devices and do not communicate activities in real time.
2. Patient portals for clinics, hospitals, and to give patients access to laboratory results, imaging reports, messaging, appointments
3. EHR mobile applications to add mobile functionality for providers, and hospitals
4. Provider oriented

Consumer oriented mobile health apps are readily available for download at the iTunes store for iOS ( Apple products, ie iPad, iPhone, iMac and Macbook.) 

Many are also available on the Google Chrome Store

Mobile apps span a wide range of health functions. While many mobile apps carry minimal risk, those that can pose a greater risk to patients will require FDA review.

Please visit the mobile medical apps example page for a list of examples of mobile medical apps that have been cleared or approved by the FDA. Visit the Examples of MMAs the FDA regulates webpage for a more detailed list of examples of mobile apps that would require FDA review.

Mobile apps for which the FDA intends to exercise enforcement discretion

For many mobile apps that meet the regulatory definition of a “device” but pose minimal risk to patients and consumers, the FDA will exercise enforcement discretions and will not expect manufacturers to submit premarket review applications or to register and list their apps with the FDA. This includes mobile medical apps that:

• Help patients/users self-manage their disease or condition without providing specific treatment suggestions;
• Provide patients with simple tools to organize and track their health information;
• Provide easy access to information related to health conditions or treatments;
• Help patients document, show or communicate potential medical conditions to health care providers;
• Automate simple tasks for health care providers; or
• Enable patients or providers to interact with Personal Health Records (PHR) or Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems.

For a more detailed list of examples of these types of mobile medical apps that do not require FDA review, please visit the webpage Examples of Mobile Apps for which the FDA will exercise enforcement discretion.

The FDA issued guidance for FDA drug and device staff. (pdf download)

Mobile Medical Application (Mobile Medical App) For purposes of this guidance, a “mobile medical app” is a mobile app that meets the definition of device in section 201(h) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) - 7 - 4 ; and either is intended: · to be used as an accessory to a regulated medical device; or · to transform a mobile platform into a regulated medical device.

Keeping Up with Progress in Mobile Medical Apps

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