Tiffany Ryan, VP, Account Services, Palio

Thirty years of HIV.

Today I wear a red ribbon for HIV. I wear it with reflection, empathy, understanding, and a desire to do more.

For the early sufferers who spoke up and brought awareness to a disease in the midst of stigma, hatred and misunderstanding. I wear it to honor people like Elizabeth Glaser, Joey DiPaolo, and Ryan White. I wear it to honor their bravery, compassion, and dedication to addressing the issue, speaking up for what is right, and holding true to their beliefs.

For those who bring awareness, support, and information to the communities impacted with HIV every single day. I wear it to honor these individuals – doctors, nurses, case managers, AIDS support groups, peer educators, and counselors. I wear it to honor their passion and dedication to making a difference.

For those living with the virus. I wear it to honor their personal fight against HIV.

But most importantly, today I wear a red ribbon because even after 30 years of information, activism, awareness and education, we still have a long way to go. Because even after 30 years of evolution in treating HIV, we still haven’t cured it. Because even after 30 years of understanding HIV and how to prevent transmission, we have more work to do. The epidemic grows. The stigma grows.

This week the CDC released estimates from three surveillance datasets about the HIV care continuum in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

-        Today there are approximately 1.2 million people living with HIV. And 20% are unaware they are infected.

-        Out of the 80% aware of their status, 77% of HIV-infected adults are linked to medical care for their HIV treatment, but only half of them remain in medical care

-        Transmission reduction strategies are limited, with less than half of HIV patients indicating that they received prevention counseling

Couple these figures with the fact that the incidence of annual infections remains stable at approximately 48,000 new infections each year, it’s clear that more needs to be done.

The National HIV/AIDS strategy has several measurable goals which, if achieved, could have tremendous impact on this issue. Goals include:

-        Lowering the annual number of infections by 25% by 2015

-        Increasing the number of people living with HIV who know their status to 90%

-        Reducing HIV transmission rate by 30%

-        Increasing the number of patients linked to medical care within three months of their diagnosis

The strategy aims to increase prevention efforts, access to care, and reduce HIV-related disparities in high risk communities. It’s a start. But we won’t beat this epidemic until HIV and AIDS once again becomes part of our consciousness. When we reduce apathy and take action. All the government agencies, special committees, and strategies can’t solve the issue. We all must take responsibility for our part.

It’s hard to some up what 30 years really means to this epidemic. For me personally, it’s going to be a day of reflection and remembrance.  It’s impossible not to acknowledge the history, evolution, and growth in understanding the disease. If you have four minutes today to reflect and remember, check out The Kaiser Family Foundation video – summarizing thirty years of milestones. We’ve made huge progress so far. I’m hopeful that in my lifetime I’ll witness many more positive milestones leading us toward the eradication of this disease.

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Todd LaRoche, EVP, Managing Director of Creative, Palio

There is no slow season in health care. Whether seeing patients in between personal and professional appointments or a spike in patient visits during cold and flu season, doctors are always busy. For sales reps, this results in a greater challenge getting face time with doctors.

Sales reps may not be used to communicating in a two-minute window, but doctors, nurses and office staff are conditioned to interact that way. Last year on Pixels and Pills, I wrote about being brief and getting to the point when communicating with doctors. That still holds true, but with more doctors tethered to their smartphones and iPads, we need to use technology to change how we communicate with doctors.

Give them what they want. Sales reps need to get better at tracking information related to each sales call, including the doctor’s contact information and preferred mode of communication, patient population needs and prescription-writing activity. With a compressed amount of time to detail new medicines and deliver marketing messages, it’s important to address those most relevant to each practice. Having better information, sales reps can then implement more doctor-centric strategies and design more relevant campaigns.

Get your high tech game on. It’s important to identify creative ways to convey information. For doctors who are digitally savvy and prefer electronic communication, an interactive iPad app or digital brochure can deliver value and foster stronger relationships – all while providing an efficient and more cost-effective means of communicating beyond the traditional face-to-face call. And, physicians can review information at a time that is convenient to them – not when they have an office full of patients.

Speak in sound bites. If you can convey information in a 140-character tweet, you can do it in the real world. But if you have mere minutes of a physician’s time – whether in the office or at a virtual event – a succinct presentation style can be a real differentiator.

Recognize that it’s all in the details. While overall sales and market penetration matter immensely to the organization’s bottom line, at the individual sales rep’s level there are other metrics worth tracking in this limited-face-time environment. Average amount of time spent discussing products with a physician, requests for additional information, volume of sample product distributed or prescription-writing activity are just three of many ways to track messaging effectiveness by proxy measures. Understanding how physicians want to receive and interact information can help you determine the best technology solutions to facilitate information exchange and meet their needs.

Technology is creating new and exciting opportunities for communication that enable us to take evolving communication preferences into account when providing new product information, clinical alerts or product updates. By incorporating communication technology, electronic promotional activity, and virtual events into our communication arsenal and demonstrating depth and breadth of product knowledge, sales reps can provide valuable interactions with doctors and achieve their objectives.

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

01. 23andme
Categories:	Home testing, genomic testing
What it is:	According to their site: “23andMe is a retail DNA testing service providing information and tools for consumers to learn about and explore their DNA. We utilize the Illumina OmniExpress Plus Research Use Only Chip which has been customized for use in all of our products and services by 23andMe. All of the laboratory testing for 23andMe is done in a CLIA-certified laboratory.”
Why it Matters:	We are at the dawn of personalized medicine. Up until now, testing and diagnostics have been in the hands of physicians. This is starting to change. With a growing geriatric population and sky-rocketing health care costs, there will be a trend in taking ownership of one’s healthcare. That, along with the coming trend of aging in place, proactively taking responsibility for one’s healthcare will not only take hold, it will become the norm. Look for encouragement from healthcare policymakers to take proactive steps not only in preventative care, but for long term disease management. And, very soon, the dialog will shift from “sick care” to “health maintenance.” The long view will shift will be from “healthcare” to “health lifestyle.”

02. Cure Together
Categories:	Social media, social medicine
What it is:	Disease state social media. According to mashable.com: CureTogether is not just for people with chronic illnesses; most people have medical issues, if only the occasional seasonal allergies. CureTogether helps you track symptoms, share information with others and, ideally, find treatment and cures.
Why it Matters:	This seems remarkably close to Patients Like Me, but the big difference seems to be built around sharing antidotal information around what works and what doesn’t, and allowing the community to share data that is aggregated into data visualizations that patients can review and form their own opinion about what’s working and what’s not. This is a further step toward participatory medicine. The important bit of information to note in these social disease state sites is that the conversation is moving further away from the doctor as being the sole source of healthcare and disease state information.

04. FitBit Tracker
Categories:	Medical devices, data visualization, personal healthcare
What it is:	According to the FitBit site: The Fitbit Tracker shows your real-time activity stats so you know how close you are to your goals. It’s with you every step of the day, motivating you to make small changes that add up to big results.
Why it Matters:	Are you starting to see a trend here? This is another device that allows patients to track various datapoints in their lives. Steps taken, hours slept, calories burned. What’s exciting about this device is that they have added a gaming level in the form of a flower. The more active and healthy you behave, the better the flower will grow. Another interesting bit they have added is the ability to name your device. The device will also asked to be “walked” or to engage in another activity. It brings to mind the Bandai’s Tamoguci products. But now instead of pressing a few buttons to take care a virtual pet, users will take proactive measures to take care of themselves.

05. Robotic Eye Surgery Currently in beta
Categories:	Robotics, assistive technologies, medical devices
What it is:	According to the website: Researcher Thijs Meenink at TU/e has developed a smart eye-surgery robot that allows eye surgeons to operate with increased ease and greater precision on the retina and the vitreous humor of the eye. The system also extends the effective period during which ophthalmologists can carry out these intricate procedures.
Why it Matters:	Okay, this is something that is definitely not for the “do-it-yourselfer.” Kidding aside, this is an important device to note because it amplifies the value of the technologies mentioned before in this article. Why? As the mundane part of medical care is taken over by patients, doctors will be able to more clearly focus on true healthcare, allowing them to be able to put their energies into doing what patients themselves can’t: expand the data, analyze the patient and make more effective diagnoses. They will be able to make use of far more advanced technologies that are beyond the reach of the patient. They will move from the role of “health monitors” and “mechanics” to highly specializes practitioners of the medical arts.

Happy exploring.

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Tiffany Ryan, VP, Account Services, Palio

What an exciting time to be working in HIV. After 30 years, the scientific community has deciphered the mechanism of viral replication, resulting in multiple drug classes targeting multiple points of replication. On the patient/provider level, therapies have evolved to meet market needs – efficacious drugs with improved tolerability and convenient dosing.

This disease state has grown and changed at unprecedented speed – shifting what was once a death sentence into a chronic, more manageable condition.

Recently, there have been some interesting new discoveries that could impact and shape the future of HIV medicine. Discoveries that intrigue, surprise, and potentially shift the future of HIV care.

Glowing Cats and HIV – Don’t let the whimsical (maybe a bit spooky) photo fool you. This is real science. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic conducted a gene-therapy based study that looked at the impact of inserting genes that are known for blocking FIV cell infection into feline eggs prior to sperm fertilization. A jellyfish gene was also inserted, to allow for tracking purposes, which caused the cats to glow green. The genes disable the virus’s outer shield during entry into the cell, thereby not allowing the virus to begin replication that occurs within the cell. The impact of this genetic defense approach will likely have applications for advancing future genetic therapies for people and cats alike with HIV/AIDS.

Cholesterol and HIV – An international team of immunologists published findings that could have implications on future vaccine development. Researchers found that removing the cholesterol contained in the viral envelope of the HIV molecule interfered with the way that the virus attempts to reprogram the body’s immune response to the infection.

Gaming and HIV – Fresh from the “complex problems are solved in creative ways” files, gamers have solved one of the many mysteries of HIV that have plagued the scientific sector for years. Foldit, a game developed by researchers at the University of Washington, is designed to help solve complex scientific problems through competitive games. In three weeks, gamers were able to create models that allowed for successful molecular replacement and subsequent structure determination of the protease enzyme. This information will be critical to informing new drug discovery and development efforts. However, maybe even more promising is that this game has been used to solve problems in other disease categories – namely cancer and alzheimer’s research.

The possibilities appear to be endless when you take the best of technology and combine it with human intuition. I, for one, can’t wait to see what comes next.

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Sean O’Donnell, Group Copy Supervisor, Palio

Consumer marketing may seem like the Wild West compared to pharma marketing which must live in the confines of regulatory requirements and an indecisive FDA when it comes to social media guidelines. Still, the two disciplines have much in common. Both require understanding the target audience and creating effective communications that address a consumer’s need or desire.

However, just because pharma marketing has more restraints doesn’t mean there aren’t lessons to be learned from the consumer space.

It’s about how you roll. People want to associate with a brand that resonates with their own values. And, they’re interested in more than having their current needs met; they want someone to help them envision something better.

Different brand personalities appeal to different audience segments, but if Apple has taught us anything, it’s that cool rules. They’ve successfully managed to tap into that persona by letting it shine in everything they do from developing cool products to providing super friendly customer service. They also never come out and say they’re a cool company – they let their brand ambassadors do that for them. They have an army of fans who genuinely love their products and use social media to share their experience.

People are doing more research. When it comes to shopping decisions, consumers are relying on the internet more than ever prior to making a purchase. The same is true for health care consumers. They’re researching physicians, treatment options, drug choices and networking with patients – often before they ever step foot into the doctor’s office.

Empowered patients are the new normal and they’re influencing sales and prescribing behavior. Use social media to provide credible and accessible information to support patient decisions, encourage brand advocacy and foster better communication with doctors.

Provide an experience. Getting a sale is only half the battle; building customer loyalty and repeat business is the other half. It’s no longer enough to just deliver a quality product. People want an outstanding customer experience and if they don’t get it from you, they’re going to look elsewhere.

That means getting employees to “live the brand.” At Starbucks, they’ve instilled a “Just Say Yes” company culture. They provided employees with a mantra – not a manual – to guide their actions. If a customer wants his caramel macchiato with skim milk, he’s going to get it.

For pharma marketers, it’s about taking time to listen to patients and practitioners to determine what they need and then exceed expectations with every interaction. Providing an experience also means staying in touch, whether that’s sending valuable information via an email newsletter or letting people know how to contact your company on Facebook, Twitter or the company website.

The consumer space has embraced the shift of the digital frontier from the Web to apps. Communication is changing; people want to feel like they’re part of the process and have achieved something. It’s shared, evolving and organic from the people around them.

Ultimately, marketers like it both ways: Everyone wants to talk about integration and being brilliant at the basics while at the same time touting the game-changing value of deep industry expertise. But if there’s value in such specific experience, there are also insights to be found by looking outside of your own industry for how other sectors grow their businesses. Go ahead – take a page from the consumer playbook!

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Jon Fisher, Technology Manager, Palio

According to recent Manhattan Research findings, 38% of ePharma Physicians have seen sales reps with iPads or other tablets during face-to-face meetings – However the study suggests marketers are not leveraging these devices to their full potential.

- A new ePharma Physician® v11.0 study explores the evolving pharma service model and digital opportunities for marketers – Webinar August 11^th 11am ET

It’s not surprising that there are studies in the pharma industry pointing to a lukewarm reception rate among physicians who are being detailed from an iPad. The introduction of the iPad as a platform for e-detailing is no longer just about selling a drug. It’s about the doctor relating to the iPad itself as a world of interactivity and connectivity that can bring medicine to life. For many docs who do not own iPads, being detailed on this device could seem like a well orchestrated show on a beefed up e-reader, especially if the functionally of the e-detail application involves little more than squinting at oceans of tiny text, watching a basic gant chart’s graph rising and falling, or suffering through poorly composed footage of talking heads describing efficacy through a video player window. The question isn’t how much will it cost me to get a print detail aid reformatted for an iPad with some videos thrown in? The question should be how could my content be experienced in a fresh way on touchpad technology for full user engagement. The real time metrics collection, the CRM modules that plug into robust marketing software packages, even the ability to get an e-signature, will not come into play within the first critical 60 seconds the rep has to capture a physician’s attention with valuable information they can use.

Technology, like all successful physical product attributes, eventually becomes copied and commoditized. And while we might see significant gains from the initial excitement and buzz of the “wow effect,” it eventually wears off and what remains is the content and how it is experienced. So many companies cut and paste traditional media solutions into new media platforms creating “brochure-ware” that fails to take advantage of the technology. Unfortunately, what is happening is that print materials are being delivered in a digital medium. It takes more than adding a video to make something “digital.” The question isn’t “How much will it cost me to get a print detail aid reformatted for an iPad?” The question should be “How could my content be experienced in a fresh way on this new tool for user engagement?”

The iPad is not going away. It’s here to stay. Although its growth may have not taken off as initially anticipated within the health industry, as more reps and doctors understand the technology and its extensive ability to produce a dynamic learning environment with real time information – clickable charts, images, video and extensive interactive usability – we will see more and more companies in the marketplace competing to provide the best functionality in their e-detailing apps. When the technology is not being used to its full capability, it can be seen as being little more than an old school “push” selling tactic as opposed to fully exploiting the technology to bring the physician into the story of the brand. The iPad is more than an interactive e-reader or a seductive technology gimmick. It is a portable library that can connect instantly to new data and, if used as it was designed, it can become a synergistic connection that can truly create the multi-dimensional dynamic experience used not only for detailing but also for teaching and interacting with patients.

To hear more of Palio’s point of view on ways to better maximize this medium, view our SlideShare: Palio 360° solutions, The Seven Tips to IVA Development. 

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Marty Hardin, SVP Director of Emerging Media and Technology

01. Maker of cognitive training game seeks FDA approval
Categories:	Gaming, devices, FDA
What it is:	A video game that its manufacturer is claiming improves the deficits in attention and memory that are often associated with schizophrenia
Why it Matters:	This would blur the lines between medication, modalities, devices and what defines a “dose.” It’s also an important milestone in defining when and where the FDA will have authority in regulating claims made by products. It will also break new ground in dispensing. This is definitely “one to watch.”

02. Nanosensor detects toxic airborne chemicals, uses iPhone to alert authorities
Photo Credit: Dominic Hart/NASA
Categories:	Mobile devices, environmental analysis, AI technology
What it is:	A device that works in conjunction with a mobile device (an iPhone) to alert authorities in the event of detection of toxic chemicals.
Why it Matters:	Too often we limit our thinking to in regard to mobile devices. We often forget that mobile devices can work in tandem with specialized hardware to create accurate reporting that removes the element of human error by delivering hard data as opposed to anecdotal information. This means that adverse events, patient adherence and environmental factors could be accurately documented, taking the burden of proof off of our clients.

03. Amazon Brings “Cloud-Accelerated” Silk Browser To Kindle Fire
Categories:	Tablet technologies, distributed computation, cloud based technologies
What it is:	A technology that offloads some of the processing needed by web based applications and web services.
Why it Matters:	One of the inherent problems in tablet design is balancing processor power to battery life to physical space. What this technology does is share some of the processor load with the cloud based servers at Amazon. What this means is faster, more fluid performance with applications that are distributed via the web or specialized applications.The potential is to create applications that would enable realtime data visualization. Imagine being able to walk a physician through a non-linear 3D mechanism of action demonstration that shows the effect of a medication, on the molecular level, within the body. Or being able to aggregate live, flowing data from a data base in near-realtime. Suddenly, our walk-throughs have the potential to be truly interactive and engaging in ways that have been limited by tablet and mobile devices themselves.

04. Microsoft idea: Kinect body scans could estimate age, automate parental controls
Categories:	Kinect, biometrics, artificial intelligence (AI)
What it is:	A technology that by using physical dimensions can estimate age.
Why it Matters:	Biometric devices have been around for awhile. Eye scans are used by airports to grant people access to secure areas. What’s different about this is that it is already sitting in millions of homes around the world. And, while the theory is accurate, there will never be a way to be 100% accurate without input from the user. However, behaviors coupled with input data from the user can be harvested to create a profile that’s pretty close.Imagine being able to have preliminary data captured through your gaming device. Normal stats-blood pressure, pulse, weight, height, etc., could be harvested. A connection could be made to your doctor’s office and basic triage information could be sent in advance of an appointment, and waiting when you arrive. Rudimentary diagnostics could already be calculated and a treatment algorithm could be suggested to the physician. This could mean more time for the doctor to engage with the patient and could lead to a potentially better diagnosis. Building our clients products into the algorithm could help insure more accurate prescribing information and potentially reduced adverse events (AE’s).

05. Movenbank: The world’s first cardless bank launches in Alpha
Categories:	Mobile banking, Near field communication, gamification, finance, commerce
What it is:	The first bank to launch without plastic, but to launch using game psychology and social media strategies.
Why it Matters:	It matters on several levels.First: This is the first financial institution the will be totally banking (pun intended) on the adoption of near field technology for financial transactions. Paying by cell has been around in Europe and Asia for a while, but this will enable pay by device transactions. While the supporting infrastructure (NFC readers, NFC ready retail establishments) is not apparent yet, it is inevitable given the cost savings for financial institutions.Second: Gamification as applied to financial transactions to prompt people to save, give to charity and pay off bills is exciting. Using game psychology to reward positive behavior to affect financial responsibility is a great thing.Third: Using social media to align and compare spending profiles and types could yield unexpected results. While comparing and striving for better financial ratings among your peers, there could also be potentially negative results. From being disqualified for potential jobs, to being shut down socially because you can’t handle your money-this is potentially the future standard by which you will be judged.Pharma could take several cues from this application:1. Using NFC for couponing, distribution of patent education materials and tracking patient behaviors could quickly streamline how materias and information are distributed, tracked and transactions are recorded.2. Using game psychology to make patient and physician education fun or to make compliance interesting could yield huge benefits to patient health. Making mechanism of action into a game could help doctors quickly grasp the pharmacokinetics impact of a compound within the body-while having fun. 3. Leveraging social media to help the patient and physician community to better achieve adherence, safety while avoiding potentially harmful adverse events is a very good thing.

Happy exploring!

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Mike Smith, Digital Strategist, Palio

Tuesday morning of the 5th annual Digital Pharma East (#digpharm) in Philadelphia made lively with over 600 of the best and brightest in the industry.

First, Shwen Gwee and Marc Monseau gave a state of healthcare and digital marketing address, reminding everyone to:

1. Integrate programs across channels
2. Know the potential ROI of programs
3. Always engage customers!
4. Develop your own guidance instead of waiting for the FDA’s
5. Reach healthcare professionals
6. Go mobile

Chad Ballentine of Takeda explained how CRM is the backbone of their multi-channel marketing for proton-pump inhibitor Dexilant. Marketers are all having to do more with less, and Dexilant has made that work by integrating data on all digital customer interactions on their website and social channels. In the tricky OTC market, building, maintaining and utilizing a strong database matters, and they’ve done it.

Todd Kolm of Pfizer used examples like mytimetoquit.com for Chantix and Sharecare for Lyrica to demonstrate ways how to understand the consumer’s path through information, and how to use that knowledge to customize the experience accordingly.

Digitas Health’s Matt McNally spoke on how to get a new marketing mindset. His five benchmarks:

1. You no longer need to feel threatened by technology.
2. You see your customers as people you can help.
3. You look for ways to share information.
4. You put a priority on becoming more responsive.
5. You understand in the ability to adapt quickly.

Groups who are already there, he said, included the above-mentioned Chantix’s My Time to Quit, as well as the “Pick Your Nose” campaign for Flumist, along with Arimidex for breast cancer and Group Loop for teens with cancer.

All that before lunch on the first day! You can tell why I was excited to stick around.

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Bob Mason, EVP, Managing Director of Insight and Brand Strategy, Palio

The pharmaceutical industry isn’t known for its rapid embrace of technology, but the iPad has shattered that myth. Pharmaceutical companies such as Boehringer, Novartis and Abbott are using the devices to generate sales, provide information to investors and deliver medical information to health care professionals.

There’s no doubt that tablets are the pharmaceutical industry’s hottest trend. iPads and Android-based alternatives are an ideal fit for the pharma sales force as well as a range of health care and industry professionals. Pharma’s interest in mobile apps also delivers a range of previously impossible options. For example, with more people toting iPads, interactive competitions at industry conferences, games for patients to improve health outcomes or detailing and CRM applications for the sales force are all possible.

iPads are positioned to be game changers for the industry. And, they have yet to deliver on their true potential. Because iPads and other rival tablets enable users to consume media in new and exciting ways, pharma companies and their vendors should begin investigating and investing in new apps to power their business.

Pharma marketers have more opportunities to reach the target audience with robust, relevant Web, mobile and email experiences and interactions, well beyond the limitations of earlier mobile devices.  For the sales force, as the amount of time a physician spends with reps decreases, smartphone and tablet apps provide a more efficient and attractive way to present information to medical professionals.

Pharmaceutical companies are investing heavily in arming the sales force with iPads to better engage doctors during sales visits. If you’re considering using a tablet for a sales presentation, keep these two rules in mind:

Don’t use it just because you have one, or because you want to wow the customer. Whether used as a conversation starter or in place of a one-on-one meeting, your presentation can impact prescribing behavior. While whiz-bang graphics may be aesthetically appealing, it’s the content that matters. Include demos, reports, graphs, interactive medical calculators and decision support tools that illustrate clinical benefits or efficiencies at the point of care.

Do use it to simplify the sales call, and to show information you don’t want to leave in hard-copy form. A tablet lets you walk in the door with less “business baggage” – the note pads, the briefcase, etc. And having key  information on a tablet lets you show the data in an attractive manner without leaving behind information can occasionally find its way into the hands of a competitive sales rep.

How physicians receive information is constantly changing, but based on current trends, it’s obvious they like information in digital form. Using mobile devices for sales presentations can enable reps to differentiate themselves and deliver clear, concise and compliant messages.

Adoption of iPads is bringing new changes to the industry and will continue to serve as catalyst for future changes. Whether it’s medical education, patient communication, physician offices or pharmaceutical sales, we’ve only begun to scratch the surface. While 2011 was the year of the tablet, “there’s an app for that” will continue to influence pharma in how they deliver messages on the medium.

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.

Bob Mason, EVP, Managing Director of Brand Strategy, Palio

Last year I wrote about the “Checking in” fad, but is it gaining momentum… especially in the pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing world?  Checking in is still a niche activity but with over 50 percent of mobile users armed with smartphone technology, this will be the year it’s moving to the masses as individuals use these apps to discover new places, people and information. Why are “geo-services” appealing? Because they are an exciting, interactive way to engage an audience, particularly in health care, and there is a pool of opportunity for all the applications and services out there as health care marketers look for new ways to engage consumers.

How does location-based information help?

Be in the Know Wherever you Go – Most people pack their prescriptions prior to traveling but there are times when you need a “vacation fill.” Years ago, being in an unfamiliar area meant driving in circles to find a neighborhood pharmacy. Today, with applications like Foursquare, not only can people find the nearest location, they can also access reviews, promotions, tips and driving directions.

Imagine needing emergency medicine such as an epinephrine pen. A mobile device with a geographical information system can help people find the nearest pharmacy, check drug availability and get required medication in time.

Map your Destination – Most rental car companies offer GPS tracking devices for an extra fee and most smartphones come with GPS pre-installed. Travelers and first-timers can also use location-based technology to find the nearest hospital, walk-in medical clinic or dialysis facility.

Connect Environmental Concerns with State of Health – Individuals that check in everywhere can uncover patterns that may provide insight about how their locations affect their state of health. Does Chinese Restaurant Syndrome strike whenever you visit your favorite take out?

Network with Like-Minded People – Newly diagnosed with diabetes, fibromyalgia or breast cancer? Social media applications bring together people from anywhere in the world, providing a forum for virtual support and exchange of ideas right from your iPhone, Blackberry or other handheld device. Want to meet in person? Location-based social apps can help you find people in your vicinity with the same concerns.

Location-based technology is changing how we shop, communicate and learn. Foursquare has surpassed six million users, but people are interested in more than checking in. Interest in on-the-spot mobile coupons is growing, and health care providers can use location-based technology to not just educate and inform consumers, but inspire them into action. Social mobile communication has a strong outlook for the future and should be a key component of the marketing strategy.

Palio is an advertising agency revolutionizing pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing to create experiences that will Never Be Forgotten.