Hive Health

Awesome news for all of us here. As I type I know Jas and the team are hitting it pretty hard in some city club, no doubt buying vodka by the bottle, and refusing mixers with total abandon.

The PM Society Digital Media Awards hosted by Hugh Dennis and held at the civilised Brewery by London Wall kicked off at 6pm this evening.

Having headed off home due to early work stuff (1x procurement 8.30 and 1 x malaysian trip),we rounded the evening off at mine and sensible soft drink. As usual with late London do’s I have the pleasure of Busby as a non-paying B&B guest.

The results were great recognition for a stack of  hard work alongside a fantastic set of progressive clients. Thankfully the categories are short and succinct, the foods well up on any other event (meringue shard excluded!) and it’s a really nice compact affair.

Clearly a proportion of the digital/social media crowd failed to appreciate the community showing a distinct lack of enthusiasm for clapping and supporting entries and winners which did  dampen the joy a little we all had a riotous time. I hope this can change when people realise that these are early days and there is no point in turning up, wearing square glasses and pretending you are too bleeding edge to champion a rigorous judging process and a desire for progress.

In terms of results, both Hive and Ebee had a great night – 2 tables surrounded by new and old friends.  Awards were won in their plenty. Across the two companies we take back to Soho;

• WIN – Best Self directed digital selling tool
• WIN – Craft award for film and animation
• HIGHLY COMMENDATION – HCP educational programme award
• COMMENDATION –  Digital solution for congress/symposium

To top it all Ebee’s amazing Gemma T stomped home with the DIGITAL PROJECT MANAGER award making us hugely proud.for me the best of all awards – one celebrating good, clever, dedicated talent.

A great night (that no doubt is still going on). As always thanks to Neil, Vivien and Rachel and the entire team for a great night.

Yesterday pharma marketeers with Facebook company sponsored pages received an email stating ”Previously, pharmaceutical brands could submit a request through their Facebook Sales Representative to disable commenting on their Facebook Page. In an effort to keep Facebook a forum for open dialogue, the company will not allow admins of new pages to disable commenting on their pages”

The change kicks in from August 15, and has been brewing for a little while. No doubt causing some ‘chicken lickin’ activity from those who have established a FB presence and have felt that AERs and negative comments would be controllable in the long term.

“We think these policy changes support consistency for the Facebook Pages product and encourage an authentic dialogue between people and businesses on Facebook,” continued the email. “However, we also understand that these changes may lead you to re-evaluate your strategy and presence on Facebook. We are committed to helping you during this transition.”

The practice known as whitelisting has been a special exception that goes against the liberal approach by FB. It does feel as if our industry with a requirement to monitor all AERs (whose local definition is often lacking clarity) needs to find a practical approach to this. To date the FDA and EFPIA have remained silent on AERs in the digital space – failing to help us lot a framework to connect realistically in the community. Interestingly when Yahoo commissioned a study on free text enabled health comments it found only 1 in 500 an FDA applicable AER.

It’s also important to note that this doesn’t apply to the rarely commissioned brand specific FB page. But if you are one of many managers of FB health presences as the deadline looms there are a few things that can be done. Firstly, this isn’t an issue that’s going to go away, maybe its time to build a comment approval SOP and bolt in resource to deliver against this? Secondly be secure in the comfort that you still have the ability to delete and monitor comments. Thirdly, bolt in FB service likea Buddy media to moderate on your behalf, or use FBs existing functionality to build a word blocklist to id and spam comments automatically. As a last ditch attempt use a custom wall created as an application – its sticks a bit in my throat this one, as it removes the ability to ‘like’ comments and feels retrograde but its an option. Alternatively stick your head in the sand and get out of FB completely.

The more voyeuristic of you may have heard of a little internet sensation launched in 2009 called ChatRoulette. For those of you who haven’t, ChatRoulette is a website that pairs random strangers from around the world together for webcam-based conversations. Visitors to the site randomly begin an online chat (video, audio or text) with another visitor. At any point, either user may leave the current conversation and initiate another random connection. ChatRoulette is naturally littered with many people channelling their inner Johnny Knoxville, but this hasn’t stopped over 1.5 million users a year from logging on and taking part.

Last year the concept of ChatRoulette was combined with the need many people feel to connect with others who have similar health conditions or illnesses to them. The result? HealCam.

HealCam is all about “talking to patients like you”. Users are invited to select a disease or medical condition (such as Crohn’s or HIV) that they’d like to discuss, and are then connected with another user with the same condition.  The site founders wanted to create a place where people can exchange information, moral support and advice on a face to face level.  Since its launch last year the feedback from patients has been overwhelmingly positive. Users feel that HealCam offers them a personal platform from which to have a genuine, one-to-one chat with someone else like them.

As with ChatRoulette, the potential for misadventure is high. However, the biggest problem facing this relative newborn is a lack of traffic. According to Dr. Ostrovsky, one of the founders of HealCam, the site is currently only receiving 2,000 visitors a day.  It’s unclear whether this is due to an unwillingness on the part of patients to chat face to face, or a lack of awareness that the site exists.  Despite this, HealCam has demonstrated the need online patient communities have for connection and offered a unique solution, making it one little start-up to keep an eye on.

We all know that despite the existence of effective medicines and highly trained healthcare professionals, a majority of patients don’t comply with the treatment regimens or lifestyle changes that could save their lives. To help address the psychological and behavioural barriers that hinder adherence and behavioural change, healthcare communicators and practitioners have been looking to one of the most innovative and engaging media we have today: video games.

Using video games within healthcare isn’t a new idea. Since the early 1980s, video games have been used in patient care to encourage adherence, and work alongside treatments to improve treatment outcomes.

How do video games change behaviour?
The repetitive nature of video game play is thought to be a key mechanism that promotes learning. Using games as a form of pain or stress relief relies more on the immersion and distraction they can offer.

One of the earliest examples of this is in paediatric oncology and the associated side effects of chemotherapy – nausea, vomiting, anxiety and pain. During the study, oncology patients were given a video game to play while they received their chemotherapy. The patients who played the game showed a significant reduction in nausea compared with control patients. The therapeutic effects of the game were attributed to the distraction that it provided, by focusing attention away from side effects.

Snow World
Building on this distractive method of pain management, a team of researchers and game designers developed a virtual reality game for burn patients called Snow World. Players are immersed in a virtual reality world where they fly through icy landscapes shooting snowballs at snowmen and penguins. The game was designed to minimize body motion and distract from pain during wound care.  The cool imagery and immersive game play were shown to be a viable alternative to strong drugs. Patients who played the game reported a significant reduction in pain, and fMRI scans showed a reduction in neurological pain signals.  Doctors even noted a wider range of movement from patients in physiotherapy sessions.

Packy and Marlon
Video games have not only been used in pain management; gaming has also been shown to be a powerful motivator and behavioural change tool. One well-known example is Packy and Marlon, which was originally made for the Super Nintendo game console system, and modified for children with diabetes. The two main characters, Packy and Marlon, are diabetic elephants who thwart camp invaders while protecting and finding missing supplies (insulin and healthy food). To stay in good shape during four simulated days, players must keep their character’s diabetes under control by measuring and monitoring blood glucose, taking insulin, selecting a balanced diet in three meals and three snacks a day, and handling diabetic emergencies.

A study over 6 months showed that ‘gaming’ patients demonstrated greater self-management, increased communication with parents about diabetes and better adherence to insulin therapy. Most impressively, the ‘gaming’ group had a 77% decrease in diabetes-related emergencies and urgent care clinical visits compared with controls.

Bronciasaurus
A similar example is Bronciasaurus, a video game for young children with asthma. The game is set in a world which is covered in dust because the fan that usually keeps the dust at bay has broken. Players help the in-game characters keep their asthma at bay by avoiding triggers such as dust and smoke while they go on their quest to repair the fan. There are some question-and-answer inserts in the game that need to be answered correctly in order to proceed. A series of studies on the game found that patients’ asthma-related self-concepts, social support, knowledge, self-care behaviors, and self-efficacy improved significantly after playing the game compared with the control group.

The potential for video games in health care is continuing to expand beyond behavioural change and pain management. Most recently virtual reality has demonstrated its use as a unique form of physiotherapy in stroke victims, laying the foundation for gaming to not only be an important adjunct to therapy but to even be part of treatment itself.