Hive Health

You make a mistake, you fall over, it hurts, you cry.  Next time you’ll have learnt a little bit more and maybe you won’t fall over so much.

How do you learn to diagnose and treat a patient?

Text books, lectures, cadavers, consultant shadowing, making a mistake, mis-diagnosis, failed treatment, dead patient. Next time you’ll have learnt a little bit more and maybe the patient will survive.

Obviously this is exaggerated to push the point that we learn by our mistakes. But with medical training there’s tension between the need for real-world training and learning in a safe environment. The second life training used by Imperial College creates immersive clinical training in a safe virtual world to practice skills and teach behaviours (like hand washing, and checking for patient record inconsistencies).  Take a look at this.

So how do we apply this to the pharma industry?

Well, it depends on the training need. For acute conditions rapid assessment, treatment, surgical skills and safety are paramount. For chronic conditions the training need often includes consultation skills to promote patient engagement and compliance with treatment.

Case-based scenarios are ideal for this. By mimicking the real-life decision path that HCPs go down to make an appropriate diagnosis and treatment, scenarios can be used to promote the adoption of new language and change behaviour towards new consultation techniques. Call us if you want us to take a look at the examples we’ve developed so far and how this can work for your brand.

And, finally how do the MOD use this method for sniper training? Well if you’re tough enough, you can have a go yourself  here.

 Almost a year ago I wrote an article on POM to P, a call for pharmacy to embrace the opportunity that new P brands offer. I stand by my argument that pharmacists’ role in consultation gives value to the consumer and allows pharmacy to become true healthcare providers of the high street.

A year on the opportunity arrives. We are proud to have been an intrinsic part of the launch of alli, a landmark pharmacy launch and arguably the most successful pharmacy switch ever. What is so important about alli is that the consultation is a critical part of the offer – more interaction than transaction. It’s a launch that emphasises pharmacy’s shift from a provider of products to an enabler of positive behavioural change. With alli, pharmacists must outline the personal commitment essential to weight loss, help consumers understand their responsibilities and manage their expectations.

To date both pharmacy and consumers have embraced this brand wholeheartedly. GSK have invested heavily in training and pharmacy have enrolled for that training at an unprecedented rate. It feels that this is the switch pharmacy are really going to get behind, proving once and for all that broader access to treatments is good for manufacturers, good for pharmacy, and most importantly good for us all.

Time will tell…

I saw something this morning in The Guardian (Monday’s media day – stereotype me!). It seems that many in the TV world are struggling to build shows/brands that can spread across the range of media channels that exist today.

Stephen Armstrong’s article highlights emotional charged teen drama Skins as a successful example. He states that in these times of hardship the need to create successful media brands that deliver more than one programme, spur numerous spins offs across the multi-media landscape has never been more acute. Despite a complete change in cast and writers audience loyalty has remained, viewer contribute to stories, costumes, download the unsigned soundtrack, upload their tunes and even write scripts that are then filmed as webisodes. The shows co-creator Brian Elsley puts this ongoing channel neutral success down to staying close to their audience, being careful when selecting storylines and never letting their audience feel that they are alone.

We tend to be OK stretching our brands across media – admittedly in a less competitive world that entertainment. But this all sounded relevant to our world, especially when we are planning franchise offerings, extensions and channel planning.

PS – thanks to Ian for the headline his best to date

It’s been interesting watching the unfolding pandemic and the approach taken by the DoH.

We have just won a HIV portfolio pitch and I am getting up to speed with patient comms, and its hard not to contrast this with how HIV/AIDs were dealt with in the early days.  Although a different kettle of fish the approach to communications has evolved thank God and much has been written on the development of the campaign and its subsequent panic and confusion.  

As our pandemic appears not to be living up to our initial fears its been a fascinating time to review the communications issued and the civilized approach that has been taken. Even our press, not known for their calm nature with a health story, seems to have calmed down and now tow the line when it comes to panic reduction.  With the exception of Sky News who still go live to every suspected cold in Guatemala.

I like the TV ad , I think its cooked well and does information provision in a simple way to-the-point way. Although I do find the ‘your all going down’  line a little unhelpful. The mailer that popped through the door a few days ago, alongside the leaflet given out at Angel Tube this morning and much of what I have seen on TV spokesman is integrated. The channels are pretty aligned around one strategy – we need to keep the population focused on their role. It’s given me something to do rather than worry. Although the rep in me does cry out for campaign branded tissue giveaways.

Is this is the equivalent of a nice cup of tea post bombshell? A task for us to concentrate on instead of getting all chicken liken. When I view the early iceberg/don’t die of ignorance/AIDS campaign they just confuse and scare me. They smack of a group of people who didn’t  know what to do, so they packed away their leadership and shared their panic with the nation.

Of course sneezing into tissues is a big part of reducing down the transmission of flu but given the loads of other methods  of transference could this be a finger in an ever gushing dyke. Does this mean that panic control has been prioritized over disease control? Regardless –  its been successful and bloody interesting.