Hive Health

This weekend, one of my housemates insisted I read the reviews for Veet for men on Amazon. How he came across these is something that I will never ask and am trying to block from my mind. After reading them (once I’d finished all the crying and hiccupping that embarrassingly for me come with being particularly amused) it really made me think about how differently men and women read and act on instructions and how this may impact on the way they take medicine.

With this in mind, I looked up a woman’s review for standard Veet (for those of you that have never heard of it, it’s a feminine hair removal cream which has seemingly now decided to tackle the “metrosexual” market). The review went pretty much as one would expect:

“It’s good, worked well, the first time I tried it I worried about leaving it on too long as it says 3-6 mins. It took slightly more than 3 mins for it to work and I was worried that I was too slow when taking it off but it was ok. Sometimes it didn’t take off all the hair but that may have been because i didnt leave it on long enough…”

So this lady had read the instructions, cautiously adhered to the guidelines and been worried that even by straying slightly from the recommendations,  she may suffer the potential ill-effects highlighted.

The men’s reviews demonstrated an entirely different approach to following the instructions; I have sampled three reviews below:

“Being a loose cannon who does not play by the rules the first thing I did was ignore the warning and smear this all over my knob and bollocks. The bollocks I knew and loved are gone now. In their place is a maroon coloured bag of agony which sends stabs of pain up my body every time it grazes against my thigh or an article of clothing. I am suffering so that you don’t have to. Heed my lesson. DO NOT PUT ON KNOB AND BOLLOCKS.
(I am giving this product a 5 because despite the fact that I think my bollocks might fall off, they are now completely hairless.)”

“I like the clean shaven look down in my gentleman’s log cabin, so for the past few years I’ve used a shaver. However the hair keeps growing back which means every 6 months I have to spend 20 minutes trimming again. As I’m sure you’ve realise this is valuable time I cannot waste. So I decided to get to the root of the problem and purchased this product.
Probably the first thing you will notice after using this product is the pain. Although as a man I lack the required experience, I’m going to estimate that using this product is at least eleven times more painful than childbirth.
Imagine sticking a rusty razor blade into your favourite eye, before tying your hands behind your back. Then imagine that you use the entrenched razor blade to slice open a raw onion. All the while being butt naked. This product is slightly more painful than that.
However if we ignore the blinding, crippling and debilitating pain I should point out that this product is remarkably effective. Before, all manner of organisms great and small lived down there, now nothing can grow; not even on a cellular level. Sadly this includes my genitalia; I’ve spent the last four hours staring fixedly at Carol Vorderman’s arse, all to no avail. My tinkywinkleton hasn’t even so much as perked up, so if my review seems a bit harsh, it’s only because I wanted children.”

“Although I understood the part about ‘intimate use’ I could not find anything about this not being for nose or ear hair. I get fed up with constantly cutting myself whilst trying to cut my ear and nose hair with a pair of Kitchen Scissors, so I decided that this product would work for me. I rubbed it up into my nostrils and around the outside of my ears. Very soon the burn started and trust me it really makes your eyes water. Probably more that if it was on your knob or bollocks like the other reviewer did. If your eyes do water, make sure the product is not on your hands when you go to wipe your eyes as this product also removes eyelashes and eyebrows and makes your eyes water even more. I look like I have been put on a sunbed for too long and people keep asking me why I am crying. Still, a good product which does what it says”

The first two exhibited a flagrant disregard for the recommendations whilst the third’s interpretation of these was questionable to say the least.

What needed to be done in the instruction leaflet to avoid their gung-ho attitude towards “intimate use”? Should there be an Orwellian voice triggered on opening the pack that repeats “not for use on your knob and bollocks” (just to avoid any misinterpretation about “intimate use”) until the tube is safely replaced? Neon sign? Or would making the tone of the instructions different suffice?

We do currently consider typical patient types within each therapy area, ensuring that tactical plans take into account age, ethnic backgrounds, socio-economic status, concomitant conditions etc. but should we start adjusting language to compensate for a difference in gender-related interpretation. Could we improve compliance and correct self-administration of medicines by tailoring communications by gender (in non-gender specific therapy areas)?  Judging from those reviews, tailored instructions may avoid any unpleasant surprises.

It’s rare to experience a piece of media that hits you straight between the eyes, providing a level of intimacy that leaves you feeling honoured to have been present. Midst a lonely post wedding journey back from the Peak District this afternoon Radio 4s Omnibus kept me company between the horizontal rain, the storm force winds and the endless M1.

Specifically The Listening Project. A gem of a collaboration between BBC Radio 4, BBC local and national radio stations and the British Library. Tasked with capturing the nation in conversation to build a unique picture of our lives today and preserve it for future generations it’s a brilliantly gentle and real picture of who we are as a nation. If you are ever sat at your desk trying to find a voice for the rich collective of humanity we write for then I could recommend no better time spent than here. For me its  a healthy reminding kick to remember the real people that go through life not distant demographic classifications.

Please excuse my poor editing of the podcast attached I didn’t want the whole podcast only the health related conversation. It was this submission by BBC Radio Ulster that left me attempting to wake my catatonic girlfriend up on the back seat to no avail. After years of dialysis and declining health, Brendan was the recipient of a kidney donated to him by his older brother Kyron. They talk candidly about what this has meant for both their lives. Emotional heartwarming treasure.

One to the kidneys

I stumbled upon this gem of a programme whilst curating Patient Centricity news on Scoop it this morning.

Matt and I are heading up to Salford on the train, it’s pitch black, and dead depressing. This cheered me up somewhat and stirred a long gone memory.

I only just remember my sister being ill when I was about 6. A more distinct memory was her accompanying bear; Peri.  Peri pretty much was present all the way to health. Every now and then Peri is discovered still with his hospital wristband on and much smaller than I remember.  I now know that this little bear was named after a Heath Robinson looking yogurt pot, tube and bag gizmo that provided her with the peritoneal dialysis needed whilst her kidneys took a kicking,

This enterprising inspiring mum took her son’s similar requirement for a cancer companion to the next level. Just after his first birthday, Gabe’s mother, Lu Sipos, made the very first Chemo Duck for him. She thought he could use a companion to take to the hospital, one with whom he could share his journey back to health. Both Chemo Duck and Gabe finished treatment in November 2003 and have remained cancer free since.

Since then Lu along with a board of directors and a newly formed not for profit organisation have taken the chemo duck and made him fly. Chemo duck is now in production and the team are striving to give away 10,000 of these donated friends by Gabe’s 10 year birthday.

More than a companion chemo duck has become a vital part of ‘medical play’, a concept that allows children to communicate with parents and healthcare professionals, offering a window into their world midst the turmoil of cancer. Chemo duck is used time and time again as a powerful therapeutic and teaching tool used in medical facilities to familiarize children with cancer protocol and procedures.

Pretty cool eh?

This article was written by Max G, an account executive candidate as part of a first interview to help us see where his MA in International Relations from LSE and our world of healthcare collide. We are delighted to welcome Max to Hive in January.

This is, to quote Tim, a Darwinian moment. The cusp of a revolution and a moment for new thinking and creative minds. The patient is coming, the power structures are diversifying and it’s the job of folks like us to harness that power and use it to effective ends for our clients. Critically, this will mean truly respecting the conflicting and often contradictory wants of patients, instead of merely seeing digital and all things social as just another channel for vulgar old-ad indoctrination. More than anything else, this will mean actually listening to patients: learning from them and understanding their needs beyond the most basal of levels.

Just for the sake of thinking, it’s fun to draw parallels across disciplines. It can also be genuinely productive.

Take the body of literature surrounding U.S. Public Opinion and U.S. Presidents. At the LSE I took a course that addressed the interaction between Presidents and public opinion and I was particularly fascinated by the moment at which the existing consensus completely broke down. Critically, the power-players – i.e. the President – had absolutely no idea how to handle the new climate. It was akin to Reagan’s Secretary of State, George Shultz, visiting Gorbachev in the Kremlin in the late 1980s and telling him ‘The Information Age will destroy your economy if you don’t afford it the room to breathe’. The powers that be were the ones to lose out.

Think of the drugs companies as the President and the patients as the voters. To take the cast a step further, imagine Carter’s team of experts and his Presidential pollster Patrick Caddell – as the tired old ad man who simply clings to the methods of old.

Prior to the end of the Vietnam War and the election of Jimmy Carter in 1977, political scientists and commentators alike agreed that the ‘bully pulpit’ style of Presidential leadership dominated and that the masses had little to say or think, other than that which they’d already been told. In other words, if the President shouted loud enough, the public generally went along. The people were ignorant and malleable. This was termed the Almond-Lippmann consensus.

Similarly, for years the GP-patient relationship consisted of linear, one directional messaging where the GP told the patient what’s good for him and the patient minded his Ps and Qs. Why, as a patient in this climate, would you engage with a brand that meant nothing to you? You were simply told to take it. The brand name sounded scary and the active ingredient scarier. There was no reason to connect with a brand and more importantly, no one had ever muted it as an option. The President knew what was best for you.

Back in the world of politics, The Vietnam War changed the underlying conditions of public opinion dramatically and new scholarship by the likes of Katz and Witkopf asserted that the public was increasingly ‘activated’ on foreign policy issues. The consumer of policy had suddenly woken up. The trouble was, no one had bothered to tell Carter. Or rather, both him and his top-team wouldn’t listen. In critiquing the failures of Carter, one school of thought argues that Carter’s bold and brazen honesty and New World Agenda was simply too much for a typically Conservative American electorate to consume in one go. Honesty, it is argued, was the cause of his failure. For another school, Carter simply didn’t care about public opinion at all.

On the contrary, Carter failed not because he cared nothing for public opinion, but because he failed to appreciate the changes to the underlying landscape and continued to treat the electorate – or for the sake of this analogy his ‘customers’ – as ignorant drones ready to be led. The contradictions in their views meant nothing; little had really changed. From this rapidly expiring rationale, Carter tried to sell something like his human rights policies as ‘non-ideological’ and one-fit-for-all, as opposed to understanding the complex underlying reasons why different voters supported the very same policy, but for markedly different reasons. Far from pleasing everyone, this linear approach to strategy failed everyone.

Back in the world of health care in the 21st century, almost all major stakeholders now appreciate the degree to which the landscape is changing. They get that choice and patient empowerment is coming and that patients are broadly embracing of it. Worryingly however, many traditionalists see this new medium as broadly compatible with the tired old information dissemination of old. Bully pulpit ring a bell?

That’s where Hive and our team of smart cookies come in. We see the irony in giving a presentation on digital in a room full of stuffy insider types through the medium of an overhead projector. Instead, we actually seek to understand patients in their most complex – and thus natural of underlying forms. We tailor our clients’ products to this end and take power back through the empowerment of others. To some observers, this method might seem like pretension defined. Or to others as a serious challenge to the status quo. To us, it’s a holistic approach to the demands of an entirely new and still-emerging world. Digital isn’t just a corporate buzzword and choice means genuinely listening to and respecting the needs of patients.

The way we see it, you can either come with us for the ride or end up like another Jimmy Carter – as much as we love the old peanut farmer.