Pfizers miljö- och ansvarsblogg

Social Media - some trends within the pharma sector

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The pharma news letter Pharma Online organized a conference yesterday about the use of social media within the pharma sector (”Sociala medier inom läkemedelsområdet” - join the Linkedin group with the same name and/or view comments on twitter with hashtag #lmsocmed).

Over 60 participants, mostly of course from pharmeceutical companies gathered to listen to

- Hans Kullin from Eklips (the social media guru at the conference),

- Rikard Pellas from LIF, the association of the research based pharmaceutical industry in Sweden (the expert on how to apply the LIF’s ethical rules to social media),

- Elisabeth Eklund and Henrik Bengtsson from Delphi (lawyers who could explain at least what shouldn’t be done…),

- Myself, describing three different experiences Pfizer have had with social media (”can you feel my pain“, Dizza Tobak, and this blog), and

- Hanna Brodda, editor of Dinamediciner.se

As you can see, a fairly broad selection of speakers. But the conference would not have been as good if the audience would not have participated the way they did. Really good discussions!

Some reflections from my side include the very clear message that social media grows enormously fast, e.g. Facebook has over 800 million users today, only last year 100 billion pictures were uploaded on Facebook, and there were more than 1000 billion showings of videos on YouTube during 2011. It is difficult to really understand the huge possibilities and both positive and potentially negative consequences of this…

I have written blog posts on social media use before (see for instance the 2011 posts Oct 26 regarding Worldfavor, Oct 6 regarding some Pfizer experiences, Aug 24 on the use within health care, April 5 on stakeholder dialogue, and from 2010 Nov 24 also on stakeholder engagement). You know that my opinion is that Social media is not really something that dramatically changes what “we can and what we cannot do” when it comes to communication. The same rules apply to these communication channels as to the old ones. This was also clearly stated by both the lawyers from Delphi and by Rikard Pellas. The difference however is of course that everything is much faster: It reaches out to everyone, and everything once posted on the net seem to be there forever. So although the same rules apply our own culture and our internal guidelines for the use of social media have probably not been able to develop as fast as the social media platforms have. It was good to see LIF’s guiding document how the ethical rules should be understood in the social media world (see this link for details).

Potentially due to the lack of the internal guidance documents, the pharma industry have been very careful (some would say scared and slow) in starting to use social media platforms in their communications, marketing, and CSR strategies. Some companies have however slowly started to adapt to the changing media environment and I feel proud that Pfizer is one of the leaders in the industry. See for instance our Corporate Facebook page, and follow us on http://twitter.com/pfizer. And by all means, go to the Facebook page of our initiative Can You Feel My Pain, or view some of my favourite uploaded contributions from teenagers involved in the Dizza Tobak project (for instance “Love this way to die“).

So although we may feel unsecure in the new media environment, and especially how to manage issues such as reporting of adverse effects, it should be obvious for everyone that the development cannot be stopped… And if we had not understood that previosuly, I think Hanna Brodda’s presentation based on her personal experiences and experiences from running the site Dinamediciner.se made it clear. Our final and most important stakeholder, i.e. the patient, have dramatically changed his/her behaviour the last years. They are out their on the social media platforms and they discuss illnesses, medicines, individual doctors, alternative treatments etc. We may not like all those things and we may disagree on several issues, but we just have to understand that it happens and we need to manage that. And yes there are several reasons to be scared of the development, but on same time there are several positive things and great opportunties with the revolution as well!

CSR trends in 2012

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 In the beginning of the year it is always interesting to “look for the trends” in different areas. When it comes to CSR and sustainability I recommend that you take a look upon the views presented by Niclas Ihrén in the Swedish on-line newsletter CSR-i-praktiken, and by Susan McPherson in her blog post in Harvard Business Review.

Their comments have helped me in my thought process regarding CSR platforms and programs. And as you know if you read my blog post from Jan 9, during 2012 I will both work on a further development of Pfizer’s CSR-programs and, within my part-time assignment at LIF, the development of a CSR-platform for LIF. Niclas’ and Susan’s comments are of course welcome in that work process!

Social media - such a powerful tool!

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You probably already know that I am a strong fan of social media. I have discussed the power of social media, and potential uses within healthcare and other sectors, here at the blog several times before (see for instance my blog posts from Aug 24 and April 5 this year, and Nov 24 from last year).

I like to draw your attention to two very good stories about the use of social media in healthcare related issues discussed at one of my favorite CSR on-line newsletter csr-i-praktiken.se. The article in the CSR news letter is called “Social media gives a voice to cancer patients” and presents one US example and one Swedish example. Two strong cases showing the power of social media. Read it and get inspired!

And when you are on-line, take the opportunity to also review two other social media favorite cases of mine:

- Can you feel my pain

- Dizza Tobak: Check out any of these uploaded anti-tobacco contributions and get inspired!

I nevertheless feel somewhat sorry… The use of social media in the healthcare sector is still extremely pre-mature and to be honest very rare. We still have so much to learn - and that holds true for both industry, health care providers, patient advocacy groups, our agencies, and many other stakeholders…

Prevention of illnesses and creation of wellbeing

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I have discussed new concepts and ideas in the area of prevention of illnesses and creation of wellbeing here at the blog several times before. Sometimes under an umbrella of “Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship” and sometimes just as a natural development of the business strategies in the pharmaceutical industry (see for instance the blog post from Feb 8, 2011, Nov 16, 2011, and June 9, 2010).

A background to this development could for instance be found in a quote from a debate article by our former CEO, Jeff Kindler:

“We’ve made a series of commitments to ourselves and to the people we serve. For example, we have committed to advancing wellness, prevention, treatments and cures, because health is one of the most important investments a society can make. It’s time to move beyond simply helping people get better after they get sick. Shouldn’t we help them keep from getting sick in the first place?”

On “matured healthcare markets”, such as our market here in Sweden, I am convinced that we will see these concepts materialize over the coming years.

minhjartskola.se

And I am happy to see that at this very moment minhjartskola.se is being presented as a “best practice” initiative at the National Quality Register Conference (”Nationella Kvalitetsregisterkonferensen 2011, 4-5 oktober“) arranged by SKL (”the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions”).

It is important that these kind of initiatives become well-known and utilized in healthcare to enable and facilitate further development of not only the tools and concepts themselves, but also market and business models. Because I believe we could all agree with the basic idea that it is better to prevent than to cure. Tools such as minhjartskola.se that drives life style changes should be offered to citizens as early as possble (at least before they become a patient with an identified illness). And I really think it is reasonable to say that the social innovators and developers should get a fair reward for their contribution. Such a market model still needs to be developed!

Social innovation in the area of prevention and wellbeing is a very important and, at least according to me, a growing trend of Corporate Social Responsibility in the healthcare sector.

Use of Social Media in Health Care

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I participated in the conference “Sociala Medier i sjukvården - så funkar det!” (in English: “Use of Social Media in Health Care - this is how it works!”) today in Malmö. The conference was arranged by Dagens Medicin (a news magazine in the health care sector, roughly translated into “Today’s Medicine” in Englsih) and K-Street Advisors.

A very interesting, and hot, topic. I still find it somewhat funny that I get invited as a speaker to conferences on Social Media. I often declare that “I do not know anything about Social Media actually, I am just a very happy user of these new opportunities!”. But I take it as a strong sign of the lack of experience regarding social media in the health care sector, and the opportunities for great improvements, that I am being viewed as an expert… I have written about social media usage here at the blog previously, see for instance the blog post from Nov 24 last year.

So what did we talk about today? Theo Martins and Pelle Sjöqvist, both from K-Street Advisors, started in the morning as well as closed the conference in the afternoon talking about general aspects around the use of social media.

Theo Martins, K-Street Advisors

Pelle Sjöqvist, K-Street Advisors

Topics discussed were e.g. what social media is, how it works, how to get started, the difference between social media and other types of communication channels, and how social media could cause a crises or be used to manage a crisis. Pelle gave us also examples of usage of social media in the health care sector, or usages that affects us working in the sector, that he feels are worth exploring, e.g.

- Vårdguiden on Facebook

- Säkraresex.se by SLL (Stockholm County Council)

- Luskartan by Kronans Droghandel

- Flashback.org (where a lot of very strange, scary, and probably false discussions also about the health care sector can be found)

- Mayo Clinic

- Patients-like-me

I would of course also add More-than-medication and Can-You-Feel-My-Pain, but more on that later…

Presentations on use of social media ”from inside the health care sector” were given by

- Sara Natt och Dag who have met several patients telling about their diseases in the blogosphere in her profession as counselor. Very often these blogs are very open and honest. She has written several books about the phenomenon as such, and about the people she has met.

- Anna Jerdén, head of communication, Sörmland County Coucil, on their use of social media “for defence purposes” during a media crisis.

- Jens Larsson, General Counsel at the Uppsala County Council, about the legal issues around social media use, especially if you are a governmental official. My conclusion from his presentation would be that it is still a tricky area, still a lot of unanswered questions. But a guiding principle is of course that “use your common sense”. All the old privacy rules etc do of course apply also in these new communication channels!

- Mats Reimer, pediatrician from Mölnlycke, shared his experiences from being one of our most famous “blog doctors” in Sweden. Follow his blog on the webpage of Dagens Medicin.

Mats Reimer, pediatrician

- And then finally me talking about this blog (Ansvarsblogg.se), about the Dizza Tobak platform, and the Can-You-Feel-My-Pain initiative.

I talk about social media

As you probably understand I do not think social media is something “completely new and different”. To me it is just a new communication tool. Much faster and more powerful than anything we have seen before, but still something where a lot of our old rules and strategies still apply. You have to know what you want to do, you have to understand your target group, you need to carefully plan your launch of a new site or platform, you have to do a risk assessment before launch etc. etc. Just remember that everything goes faster and that you will not have full control of how things develop and evolve on the Internet… But the opportunities are so great that those risks are worth taking.

I used Dizza Tobak as an example of the possibilities to share information and experiences, or in this case uploaded anti-tobacco contributions, with the entire world in a rapid and almost for free. If you have followed me on the blog previously you know that Dizza Tobak is a project that we run together with SAMBA and A Non Smoking Generation with the purpose of eliminating tobacco usage. Some of my favourite contributions this year are:

- Love this way to die?

- Svart sot och död

- Kriget mot tobak

and of course still the Flash Mob at the Central Station last year protesting to the fact that 18 people die from tobacco each and every day in Sweden…

I also presented the Can-You-Feel-My-Pain (CYFMP) initiative where we in collaboration with, among others, Patient Advocacy Groups from all over Europe have utilized a number of different social media platforms in order to raise public awareness of chronic pain. Take part of the initiative through the following links:

- CYFMP on Facebook

- CYFMP on Twitter

- CYFMP on Flickr

- CYFMP on Twibbon

A good conference with interesting discussions on a hot topic. I am sure the use of social media in health care (and elsewhere of course) will explode for the simple reason that the opportunities are so great. But just remember that there are risks of course - but in my opinion those risks are definitely manageable.

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