Edition 16 of the Medicines Australia Code of Conduct, which sets the ethical standard for the marketing and promotion of prescription medicines in Australia, came into effect from 1st January and gives further guidelines on using digital media.

The changes are part of an 18-month consultation process with patient groups, consumer organisations, healthcare professionals, colleges, professional associations, academics and other stakeholders. But will these changes give the pharmaceutical industry greater confidence in using digital media?

A recent Edelman Australia survey of marketing and communications professionals found that 70 per cent would use digital media more if Medicines Australia gave clearer guidelines about online activity. 38 per cent said reporting adverse events online discouraged them from engaging with HCPs and patients online, while a further 9.5 per cent ‘didn’t know’.

It is hoped Edition 16 gives the pharmaceutical industry greater confidence in using digital media. Otherwise, the trust and transparency a company needs to operate will decline and incorrect information about products and companies in Australia will have the opportunity to flourish.

A Pew study found that 60 per cent of people searching for health information online say the information they find affects their decisions on how to treat an illness or condition. Therefore, there is a need for credible, authentic, trustworthy health information online.

We cannot prevent humans from wanting to interact and share information, but we can make sure they can easily access correct information. Pharmaceutical companies have deep information about specific disease states that would be of value to people looking for health information online.

Shellie Winkler, who spearheaded the Health Engagement Pulse, shares a perspective on what the public expects of American business. Shellie is EVP/Group Leader, Corporate & Financial Communications and EVP, Health, Corporate & Public Affairs with Edelman, New York.

The business community recognizes it has a role in improving health. Traditionally, many businesses viewed strong employee wellness programs and operating practices that ‘do no harm’ to the health of their communities as enough of a contribution. Now, findings from our Health Engagement Pulse suggest Americans look to business to do much more, in ways that businesses may not have previously considered imperative.

Conducted in November 2009, the Health Engagement Pulse indicates businesses may be obligated and expected to partake in health solutions. Things like sharing knowledge and innovations to improve health shift from ‘nice to have’ to ‘must do.’ The findings also signify there is a stark difference between where Americans think businesses currently are engaging in health and where they think they should be – according to the Pulse, only about one in 10 Americans think business is doing an excellent or very good job on health issues they deem important.

It’s only logical that Americans will reward companies they believe are actively engaging in health. To me, this means businesses have an opportunity to improve not only our country’s health but the health of their business, as people may be more likely to purchase from, recommend and invest in companies that act on health issues.

A few statistics from the Pulse to illustrate:
• 81 percent of Americans think it is important for business to share knowledge or innovations that improve health, yet only 11 percent think business is doing an excellent or very good job at this
• 73 percent of Americans believe it is important for business to help employees lead healthier lives, yet only 10 percent believe business is doing an excellent or very good job at this
• 86 percent would be likely to purchase from a company that is committed to engaging in and improving health
• 72 percent would be likely to invest in a company that is committed to engaging in and improving health

It will be interesting to watch businesses extend their health engagement practices and see how their performance and reputation evolves. We invite you to give the survey results and press release a full read, and let us know what you think.

Hope you had the chance to take a look at our Health Engagement Pulse survey results. If you’re keen and curious for additional thoughts, take a look at what’s being said across the digital wires by PR Week’s Jaimy Lee, CNBC.com’s Christina Cheddar Bark, the HealthCareBlog.com’s Matthew Holt, and GetBetterHealth.com’s Val Jones.

Take a look at the press release and presentation.

We're keen to hear your take on the results, so please do share your thoughts.

Engagement has become the new buzz word in health today. But, for us at Edelman, engagement is more than just a new trend. For a number of years, we have made the concept of engagement as a central guiding principle for our work in health communications. In fact, we use it so frequently to talk about what health consumers want, what we do as communicators, and how we define success that we undertook our own ongoing proprietary research on the topic via our Health Engagement Barometer. Still today, as we talk to clients and friends about our vision, we sometimes get puzzled looks and questions about the real meaning of engagement.

Now, a recent development in the growing online community of health consumers and physicians gives us a tangible example of what health engagement may look like in the near future.

In recent months, the online health community has taken a significant step in its evolution with the creation of the Society for Participatory Medicine and its launch of the Journal of Participatory Medicine.

We all know the statistics that show a vast number of individual health consumers and some medical professionals have long been users of online information and have participated in advocacy and education forums to share information and experiences. However, with the launch of the society and the journal, the online health community has matured and is being led forward by a distinct group of key influencers collaborating on a mission: to encourage more participatory medicine and change the norms in the delivery of care. These influencers are making their voice heard and creating a movement for health consumers who seek a more engaged way of working with medical professionals.

Members of the society are both patients who have harnessed the power of information to actively manage their own health and forward-thinking medical professionals supportive of a new collaborative model of health care and shared decision making. (Dr. Danny Sand’s post gives a great perspective on participatory medicine from a physician’s point of view.) That’s a far cry from the pattern of patients trolling Web sites in isolation to bring information to their physicians, who have then worked on their own to either validate or discount patient-provided information.

For communicators, this community will be one to follow to better understand health consumers – especially their preferences for patient-physician collaborations, information sharing and making decisions about managing their health. Also, organizations and professionals who have thoughtful contributions to make to the community’s discussion will likely be rewarded with feedback and relationships that may help shape future decisions about models of care delivery.

The society may be launching with a small group of key influencers, but if the momentum coming out of the recent e-Patient Connections conference held in Philadelphia is any indication, there is a huge appetite among health consumers for such new models of collaboration.

That’s a model to watch in the new world of health engagement.

Today’s news of a Rand study on California hospitals’ price transparency as well as this weekend’s New York Times article on emerging online services to help consumers compare medical service pricing shine a spotlight once again on the issue of transparency in health care. And, the news serves as an alert for health communicators that the issues of reporting and transparency are ready to emerge in earnest as key topics for consumers.

Discussions about reporting of data -- both for pricing and outcomes -- have been happening for some time among industry insiders without much impact for consumers. In fact researchers for years have studied the effects of outcomes data reporting and found little conclusive proof of a connection to health consumer behavior.

But now, as the Times’ article describes, people are paying more out of pocket for health care. That economic reality is spurring them to seek information on health care pricing – and a similar quest for outcome and quality data is sure to follow.

We as communicators will have to find ways of helping organizations navigate this topic to meet consumer need while also addressing the complexity of reporting data. Data is never straightforward as much as we would like it to be. We’ll need to tackle challenges of data time lags, accuracy of self-reported information and apples-to-oranges comparisons just to mention a few topics. That’s even more reason for communications teams to start now and take the lead in figuring out approaches to making data reporting meaningful and clear.

The key will be to make sure we’re always keeping in mind the topic from a consumer point of view. A Robert Wood Johnson Foundation policy brief from last year gives a great road map to actions to consider for better transparency on outcomes data, and the same principles can also apply to presentation of pricing information. The RWJF authors emphasize that the keys to helping consumers make informed decisions using data are that the information is: relevant, widely known to be available, delivers value and accurately identifies high quality providers. By following these principles, provider organizations can help consumers navigate through a sea of data and measures that can be complicated and confusing even for industry insiders.

So, is your organization ready for consumer demands for transparency? Ask yourself:

1.) Does your organization regularly report outcome data and industry rankings – both good and bad?

2.) Does your organization have published goals and philosophies on how it shares comparative data?

3.) Have you benchmarked yourself against peer organizations? And have you shared findings with employees, patients and consumers?

4.) How do you help consumers make sense of the outcome and pricing data that is already available?

5.) What would happen if a patient contacted your organization asking for more information on pricing or outcome data? Also, are you prepared for an investigative reporter or blogger inquiry on these subjects?

Proof of consumer interest in comparative data may have been thin in years past, but economic pressures and market-driven change is making transparency a key issue that health communicators must prepare to address.

This WSJ article, despite its focus on US health reform, offers evidence that health is mighty personal. The leaders of three top global health enterprises (Cosgrove of Cleveland Clinic; Vasella of Novartis; and Williams of Aetna) provide commentary that the WSJ summarizes in five recommendations. However, I found just as interesting the interstitials in their comments -- showing not only what they see as important but how very personally and "close to home" these CEOs view the questions of health. Here are few notable quotes:

- Dr. Cosgrove: Let me just step in for a second and say I think that this group has an enormous opportunity in terms of putting the incentives right for employees in terms of wellness… [that] corporate leaders can really change this is very clear. We've done a number of things at the Cleveland Clinic amongst our employees. So far, since we started our [wellness] program, we've lost 120,000 pounds.

- Dr. Vasella: We are looking forward to a generation who may live shorter than we do unless action is taken. The question is also, what do we do as companies to address this problem and make it easier for our employees to live a healthy lifestyle?

- Mr. Williams: In our own company, in the group setting, for example, we give our employees a discount if they are a nonsmoker on their premium that they pay as a percentage of their health insurance. We also will pay all the smoking-cessation costs, and if you quit during the year, then we will give you the nonsmoking rate. So I think the objective in these things has to be to not be punitive; it has to be to help people get to a state where they really are doing things that are supportive of good health.

Of comparable import, I wanted to draw attention to a significant point that’s missing from the conversation. Among the WSJ recommendations is “holding patients accountable”. Separately, there’s “promote integrated care”. These are currently disparate, and employers should recognize that chasm. The magic – better health outcomes, lower costs, greater satisfaction, and improved public health in aggregate – happens when patients/people and their providers partner, with mutual accountability. Anything less is not consistent with our health engagement message of participatory health – that it’s not just carrots and sticks for patients to care for themselves, but to partner with providers.

Take a full read, and let me know what you think.

Edelman Australia with Reckitt Benckiser won the award for the best PR initiative at the Australian Self Medication Industry Awards on 12 November for the Manage Pain – effectively, safely, responsibly pharmacy education campaign.

The Manage Pain campaign was developed on behalf of Reckitt Benckiser, manufacturers of Nurofen Plus, to give pharmacists a suite of materials to help Australians take pain relievers that contain codeine appropriately.

The campaign was developed in conjunction with a range of stakeholders and was endorsed by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia and the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia.

In an era of Public Engagement this was more the just a one-off campaign. The award is the culmination of years of hard work by Edelman, RB, and the sphere of stakeholders who all invested time to ensure the quality use of medicines in Australia.

Indeed, empowering stakeholders is fundamental to the success of every campaign; consulting with interested parties and being flexible enough to adapt based on evolving insights.

The Manage Pain campaign also used a range of mediums to reach its audiences with digital media, point-of-sale reminders, pharmacy staff cards, as well as traditional media outreach successfully used.

Well done the team responsible; Helen Paynter and Linda Duffy.

Following last week's FDA hearings, we know we probably won't hear guidance from the FDA for a year or so. In the interim, we must continue to rely on past experience, existing DDMAC guidance, and what we heard from those who testified.

Edelman has long counseled companies that health is a business imperative and that they must engage proactively, transparently, and in real time with all stakeholders about health and wellness. We recognize the challenges manufacturers have faced in the past decade in engaging online because of the lack of regulatory guidance. And we believe this hearing will ultimately—though perhaps not immediately—make a significant difference in the way manufacturers communicate online.

We have created a report which summarizes the issues and provides guidance to manufacturers on how to engage in online communications now. We believe it is imperative that companies engage with their customers and stakeholders, not postpone engagement until final guidance is received from the FDA.

We continue to work on our written testimony and encourage others to do so as well. As a reminder, the FDA is accepting these through February 28, 2010.

Today is Prematurity Awareness Day. Unfortunately, the March of Dimes recently released its second annual Premature Birth Report Card and America scored a depressing “D.” What that means is that every year, we’re failing more than half a million babies.

Premature babies are special to me for a couple of reasons. I volunteered at Parkland Hospital in Dallas for five years in the Neonatal ICU. As a volunteer, I held and comforted these little ones, feeding them, changing diapers or just rocking them to sleep. I saw the dedication of the nurses and doctors, the incredible stress the parents were under, and of course, the struggle these tiny babies faced being born too soon. Unlike my initial suspicions, most of these babies weren't born too early because of drug-addicted mothers or lack of prenatal care. Often, babies are born premature, and we don't know why.

And my second reason for caring is even closer to my heart. My twin niece and nephew were born premature at 36 weeks. They were in the NICU for about a month before coming home, and today they are happy, healthy 6-year-olds, not to mention extremely smart and attractive. (Hey, I'm a proud auntie!)

Although medical advances give even the tiniest babies a chance of survival, for many babies premature birth is still a life or death condition. It’s the #1 cause of death during the first month of life. And many babies who survive face serious health challenges and risk lifelong disabilities.

Learn more about how you can help.