Report details pharma's role in social media

Nearly half of pharmaceutical manufacturers are actively using social media to engage with patients, according to a report from the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics. 

The study, Engaging Patients through Social Media, found that among the top 50 pharmaceutical companies worldwide, nearly half actively participate in social media on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, but only 10 use all three for healthcare topics. Many companies are using social media primarily as a unilateral broadcasting channel to physicians and patients, with limited interaction or fostering of discussion, according to the report. Smaller manufacturers with narrower therapeutic focuses and consumer health companies typically have the highest levels of social media patient engagement.

To examine the current state of online consumer behaviors in Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, researchers developed the IMS Health Social Media Engagement Index, which assesses reach, relevance and relationship.

The report’s key findings include the following:

• Regulatory agencies are active in social media even as manufacturers await final guidance on requirements. Regulators, such as the FDA, increasingly are utilizing social media channels to connect to a wider healthcare audience.
• Wikipedia is the single leading source of medical information for patients and healthcare professionals. The top 100 English Wikipedia pages for healthcare topics were accessed, on average, 1.9 million times during the past year. Rarer diseases, which often have fewer available information sources and are less understood by patients and clinicians, show a higher frequency of visits than many more common diseases.
• Social media engagement lags significantly within the population segment that uses healthcare services the most. Age is one of a few differentiating factors in the use of social networking sites, where utilization is less dependent on gender, education, income or other forms of social advantage. Younger people tend to conduct online investigations before the start of therapy, as measured by prescriptions or sales of medications. By contrast, patients age 50 or older tend to begin their treatments prior to seeking information online. The difference of utilization by age groups will diminish as “digital natives” increase their involvement and influence professionally and privately within their networks.     

The gathering of patients online is too large to ignore, said Murray Aitken, executive director of the institute. Pharmaceutical manufacturers "have a role to play in supporting patients through active engagement in social media."