OrganizedWisdom Health Blog

Big Pharma Sets Record Year For Online Ad Spend: Up 9%

Brandweek reports that Big Pharma set another ad spending record, pushing drug marketers budgets up by almost 9% over 2005. Total spending on all prescription drug brands should come in at $4.5 billion, according to TNS, up from $4.1 billion.

Growth was driven by some familiar names, including Sepracor's insomnia drug Lunesta, which will probably grab the spending crown with $219 million ponied up through September of this year--a 78% jump.

Nielsen Monitor-Plus date indicates an even higher figure: $292 million for January through October, well over 2005's $227 million. Those numbers are especially dramatic because even at the lower level, Lunesta has the largest drug ad budget in the U.S.

And Pfizer's Viagra returned to its previous high-spending ways, spending $65 million through September, a 15% increase on last year. Pfizer had stopped advertising Viagra in late 2004 and early 2005 after complaints from the Food and Drug Administration about the quality of its ads.

It will be interesting to see the 2007 growth but initial trends indicate it will be even bigger than 2006.

WSJ Features Health Focused Social Networking Today

OrganizedWisdom.com is featured in today's Wall Street Journal in Laura Landro's article Social Networking Comes to Health Care (subscription required).

From the article, which is subtitled, Online Tools Give Patients Better Access to Information and Help Build Communities:

"The social-networking revolution is coming to health care, at the same time that new Internet technologies and software programs are making it easier than ever for consumers to find timely, personalized health information online. Patients who once mainly through email discussion groups and chat rooms are building more sophisticated virtual communities that enable them to share information about treatment and coping and build a personal network of friends. At the same time, traditional Web sites that once offered cumbersome pages of static data are developing blogs, podcasts, and customized search engines to deliver the most relevant and timely information on health topics.

The same technologies are making it possible for advocacy groups, government agencies and health-care providers to update consumers on relevant health news and deliver personalized health-awareness messages, reminders and alerts to email accounts, wireless devices and mobile phones. Online collaborations known as wikis, which let different users jointly work on Web-based information such as photo albums and contact lists, are developing to help communities plan for public-health emergencies, such as fluwikie.com, a flu-pandemic planning site. Mainstream advocacy groups and government agencies are offering their own specialized health-information "feeds" to consumers, and even experimenting with three-dimensional online computer worlds that use surrogates known as avatars to let visitors interact."

We have big plans for 2007 at OrganizedWisdom.com as we build out our community, add new features to our site, and work with you to help people get better access to health information.  Thank you so much for your support with our launch this year and all of your great feedback.  We hope you keep sharing your great ideas, publishing your WisdomCards, and spreading the word. We couldn't do it without you!!!

To help us promote the WSJ article please click this link to Digg it.

http://digg.com/health/Social_Networking_Gives_Patients_Better_Access_to_Health_Information

40% of Healthcare Bloggers Publish To Help Others

According to the first ever Global Healthcare Blogging Survey released this week by Fard Johnmar of Envision Solutions at the Healthcare Blogging Summit in Washington DC, nearly 40% of health care bloggers report that the most important reason they blog is to educate and help others. 

According the the methodology details listed in the report, 214 bloggers took the survey and 72% of respondents indicated that their primary audience is either health care providers, the general public or patients.

Other highlights from the survey include:

• 61% write about their personal experiences.
• Only 39% hide their identity to protect their privacy, patient confidentiality, or themselves.
• 47% spend 1 to 2 hours working on their blog daily.
• A third of respondents have been contacted by PR professionals.

Fard indicated at conference that Envisioning Solutions plans to make this an annual survey. It will be interesting to see how this data trends over the coming years to see how the trends evolve as more patients, caregivers, and health organizations enter the blogosphere. 

More Insights into Google's Future Health Plans and Is 2007 Finally The Year of Online Healthcare?

Rough Type has a great blog post with more information about Google's mysterious health related plans that is a must read.

There's still no concrete direction about Google's ultimate vision (or specific products), but if Google VP, Adam Bosworth's speech this week at this health conference in DC is any indication: Google is interested in helping consumers control their medical records too. 

We've heard a lot of talk about this same issue from the Revolution Health folks, but so far we haven't seen anything yet. At the same time, it's been great to see all of the innovation from more entrepreneurial ventures such as MedBillManger.com who are pushing consumer control forward and developing solutions designed to help consumers save time, money, and avoid pain.

It's only December, but it looks like 2007 is going to be an interesting and busy year in Online Healthcare...the year perhaps the media shifts its focus from technology tools to HOW these tools are helping transform people's lives in ways that matter -- like getting more control of their health care.

We'll be writing more about this issue when we post our Health predictions for 2007 at the end of the year...

Are You Going To The Healthcare Blogging Summit?

OrganizedWisdom will be attending the Healthcare Blogging Summit and the Consumer Health World Conference next week in Washington D.C.  If you are going to be at the conference, and you think there is a way we can work together to help people get better health information, please contact me at unity <at> organizedwisdom.com and let's make plans to meet...

Joe Polish from The Genius Network Interviews Steven Krein About OrganizedWisdom

Today, Joe Polish from the Genius Network interviewed Steven Krein about OrganizedWisdom.com, our overall goals, and our future plans.  Steven explains what we are building, why we are doing it and why people should share their own wisdom to help other people.

Click here to listen to the complete Podcast recording.  We'll also publish the complete transcripts in the next week or so.

Click this link to listen to the interview online:
http://tour.organizedwisdom.com/podcast/stevenkreininterviewedbyjoepolish.mp3

If you also want to subscribe to our free podcast series via iTunes, use these directions:

1) Go into iTunes and hit "Advanced -- Subscribe to Podcast"
2) Cut and paste this URL feed: http://wisdom.blogs.com/health/rss.xml