“ I can attach a cuff to my i-Pad which will then also take my blood pressure on my i-Pad and plot it out along with my weight in either chart or graph form by date and available for my physician. The problem is that my physician then hand enters the readings into my chart with a pen and paper. (…)

Patients are changing.  They are accessing medical information differently, they are storing it differently and they are consuming it more voraciously.  This access to medical information and tools means that many patients are more medically conversant and knowledgeable than the patient of just five years ago.  Medical literacy is likely on the rise.

It also changes the way physician and patient communicate.  Five years ago, I never would have considered the need for email between my physician and myself, thinking it impractical.  Today, I think a physician needs to have some portal of access for the exchange of data and information. (…)

The use of e-tools has become so ubiquitous, many physicians may not be aware the extent to which the patient experience is being changed.”

Senak, Mark. Patience Patients – Are e-Patients Waiting for e-Docs? Eye on FDA, 25th of January, 2012.
http://www.eyeonfda.com/eye_on_fda/2012/01/patience-patients-are-e-patients-waiting-for-e-docs.html

Sources:

“Pharma is not an industry known for launching headlong into new ideas and new ways of doing things—at least not without indulging in a considerable period of cautious study first. So its embrace of the iPad—both as a new sales tool and as a new way to communicate with and educate patients—stands out as somewhat anomalous. Granted, the sheer economic and cultural impact of the device, which was first released in April 2010, has been hard for any technologically focused industry to ignore: Apple sold 15 million iPads in the first nine months of launch. And its uptake among the medical profession has been particularly staggering. In May 2011, Manhattan Research reported that 30 percent of physicians in the U.S. already own an iPad, and this proportion will have already risen considerably, given that another 28 percent revealed they were planning to purchase one “in the next six months. (…)

But recognizing the iPad as a phenomenon and making a quick decision to embrace the hardware is just the beginning. The iPad revolution brings with it a new challenge, that of effective content creation… (…)

There are companies that appear to be getting it right, however. Johnson & Johnson’s psoriasis app for dermatologists and patients, which allows a quick and simple evaluation of the severity of their condition, has been averaging almost 60 downloads a day for well over a year. The reason for its success, explains Hunt, is that it is “pick-up-and-play, and immediately rewarding.”

On the sales/CRM side, Abbott‘s pilot app, developed by Oi, was successful because it was a “real closed loop solution,” says Ashley. In creating it, the agency went out with the sales reps to ascertain the various needs of the different clients: “It was a case of understanding that it wasn’t a matter of delivering a PowerPoint solution. The rep wants something that supports his conversation. (…)

Far from being a device to replace the sales rep, which has been one of the more hysterical reactions to the iPad, it serves to augment the relationship between reps and physicians. And the rep is more efficient in the relationship…

Read further at:

Upton, Julian. iPad Apps: are you content with your content? Pharmaceutical Executive, January 2012. Online:
http://www.pharmexec.com/pharmexec/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=755081&pageID=1&sk=&date=

Programme was realeased. It includes conferences around:

- Clinical data at Astra-Zeneca

- DMS at Liquent

- GXP quality system at IDT biologika

- Electronic submission with LORENZ

- Regulatory compliance at Roche

- Clinical trials documentation at Sanofi

- and many others

http://sharefestconference.com/all-sessions

“the healthcare ecosystem is now comprised of multiple stakeholders with a far more complex decision-making dynamic than existed just a few years ago. In addition, patients are not a single homogenous unit. Some may have little or no impact on treatment decisions or healthcare choices while others may take an active individual role. But the ones that we find really interesting are those taking on almost an ‘activist’ role, impacting not only their own healthcare, but potentially many, many others as well. We call this last group the “pro-patient.”

This is the pro-active patient. They are not just personally empowered and assertive, but broadcast their experiences, opinions, and objectives and therefore have a far wider sphere of influence. (…)

If you search them out, you will find this vocal minority active in online forums. They have become the de facto Patient Opinion Leaders (POL)—and just as every pharma company has a KOL strategy, they now need a POL strategy too. (…)

These people have always existed. What is different now is that Web 2.0 gives them a much broader audience. In the past their sphere of influence was limited to family and friends, but now their audience can be measured in thousands or millions. (…)

We saw some examples of the negative passion of pro-patient activity, railing against the consequences of side effects of medication, for example, but most of the pro-patients we spoke to had good intentions and saw themselves as providing a valuable service. (…)

This kind of pro-patient broadcasting clearly has the power to influence the physician/patient dynamic on a wide scale. Interestingly, when we asked physicians about this phenomenon, responses varied by country (more positive in the UK, less positive in Italy for instance), but overall physician reaction could be characterized as cautious at best. (…)

So perhaps surprisingly, even if a patient’s source of information is good, or may have been from a pro-patient who broadcasted with the best intentions to help educate, this can still be viewed less-than-positively by physicians.

(…)

Roberts, Elys and Sarah Phillipps. The emergence of the Pro-Patient. Pharmaceutical Executive, January 2012, pp.48-49
http://www.pharmexec.com/pharmexec/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=755084&sk=&date=&%0A%09%09%09&pageID=2

Some extracts:

“advocates for “open science” say science can accomplish much more, much faster, in an environment of friction-free collaboration over the Internet. And despite a host of obstacles, including the skepticism of many established scientists, their ideas are gaining traction”

Some good stories are:

• Public Library of Science (PLoS)
•  ResearchGate — where scientists can answer one another’s questions, share papers and find collaborators — is rapidly gaining popularity. Its membership has mushroomed to more than 1.3 million. The Web site is a sort of mash-up of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, with profile pages, comments, groups, job listings, and “like” and “follow” buttons. Only scientists are invited to pose and answer questions.Scientists populate their ResearchGate profiles with their real names, professional details and publications — data that the site uses to suggest connections with other members. Users can create public or private discussion groups, and share papers and lecture materials. ResearchGate is also developing a “reputation score” to reward members for online contributions. ResearchGate offers a simple yet effective end run around restrictive journal access with its “self-archiving repository.” Since most journals allow scientists to link to their submitted papers on their own Web sites, Dr. Madisch encourages his users to do so on their ResearchGate profiles. In addition to housing 350,000 papers (and counting), the platform provides a way to search 40 million abstracts and papers from other science databases. In 2011, ResearchGate reports, 1,620,849 connections were made, 12,342 questions answered and 842,179 publications shared
•  ScienceOnline conference will have its sixth edition this year

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/science/open-science-challenges-journal-tradition-with-web-collaboration.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Anyway, it looks like that the new “Search Plus Your World” function tends to “forget” Twitter, Facebook, Flickr… and is likely to favour its own social network Google+…

Belam, Martin. Would you like some social with your search? Google launches “Search, plus Your World”. FUMSI, online the 16 th of January, 2012.
http://web.fumsi.com/go/article/find/65955

Publishers’ “rhetoric has traditionally been of partnering with scientists, but the truth is that for some time now scientific publishers have been anti-science and anti-publication. The Research Works Act, introduced in the US Congress on 16 December, amounts to a declaration of war by the publishers. (…)

All of this is great for the progress of science, which has always been based on the free flow of ideas, the sharing of data, and standing on the shoulders of giants 

But what’s good for science isn’t necessarily good for science publishers, whose interests have drifted far out of alignment with ours. Under the old model, publishers become the owners of the papers they publish, holding the copyright and selling copies around the world – a useful service in pre-internet days. But now that it’s a trivial undertaking to make a paper globally available, there is no reason why scientists need yield copyright to publishers. (…)

Open-access publishers such as the Public Library of Science are able to make a modest profit on a publication fee of $1,350 (£880). But traditional publishers have become used to making much more than this, and so resist the inevitable conversion to open access.

t’s hardly surprising that publishers would fight dirty to hang on to a business model where scientists do research that is largely publicly funded, and write manuscripts and prepare figures at no cost to the journal; other scientists perform peer-review for free; and other scientists handle the editorial tasks for free or for token stipends. The result of all this free and far-below-minimum-wage professional work is journal articles in which the publisher, which has done almost nothing, owns the copyright and is able to sell copies back to libraries at monopolistic costs, and to individuals at $30 or more per view.

What is surprising is how complicit scientists are in perpetuating this feudal system (…)

The bottom line for scientists is that many publishers have now made themselves our enemies instead of the allies they once were. Elsevier’s business does not make money by publishing our work, but by doing the exact opposite: restricting access to it. We must not be complicit in their newest attempt to cripple the progress of science”.

Dr Mike Taylor. Academic publishers have become the enemies of science. The Guardian, Online, the 16th of January 2012.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jan/16/academic-publishers-enemies-science

Pres release:

Swets, the world’s leading information service company, and Mendeley, creators of the revolutionary online reference management and academic social networking tool, are pleased to announce the launch of Mendeley Institutional Edition powered by Swets. Building on the existing Mendeley functionalities, this multi-device solution provides librarians and institutions with a means to:

• Connect their collection directly to researchers and end users
• Support researchers within their own workflow
• Create pathways for collaboration and interaction among students, professors and their peers
• Monitor, support and facilitate the research undertaken within their institution
• Showcase the value of their institution to potential students and research staff

With over 1.4 million active users Mendeley has quickly established itself as a must-have research tool among academic students, professors and researchers around the globe. It contains the world’s largest crowd-sourced information library, with over 145 million documents. Although the software has opened up new pathways for collaboration and interaction between individual students and researchers in similar fields around the world, those researchers could still benefit from the knowledge, guidance and expertise of the traditional library. MendeleyInstitutional Edition powered by Swets addresses this need, providing a unique operating place within the Mendeley platform from which librarians can guide, support and facilitate the research undertaken across their institution.

http://www.swets.com/setting-new-standards-in-research-collaboration-introducing-mendeley-institutional-edition-powered-b

See also:

http://www.researchinformation.info/news/news_story.php?news_id=879

Elsevier’s acquisition of QUOSA marks a continuation of this collaboration which has boosted research productivity for the users of both solutions.

“QUOSA empowers enterprises to share full-text scientific information faster and more efficiently, helping users to get more out of their information while controlling costs, all with one easy-to-use copyright observant solution,” said Malcolm MacKenzie, President and CEO, QUOSA. “Both our customers and the wider research community stand to benefit from the pooling of resources and expertise with Elsevier.”

Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Boston, QUOSA began by targeting the academic and government segments and now also serves a range of corporate customers, including more than half of the Top 25 pharma-biotech companies. Financial details of the acquisition are not being disclosed.

Press Release:
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authored_newsitem.cws_home/companynews05_02199