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Mobile health has become increasingly popular as the healthcare world moves towards value and away from volume, according to a new study by GBI Research. mHealth can connect patients with numerous healthcare services, while also collecting valuable data...This approach has already had an impact on the healthcare industry and numerous organizations are making investments in the technology. mHealth can also be used to encourage patients to adhere to their treatments, providing physicians with an additional way to communicate beneficial behaviors to their patients... advances in mobile technology, the expansion of communication, and the reduction in the cost of wireless technology...have huge potential to bridge the gap within existing healthcare systems, offering an alternative form of healthcare communication and treatment at a distance...The most important driver behind mHealth is the growing need for cost-effective ways to provide healthcare...Another important driver is the shift towards value-based care and reimbursement...healthcare providers are interested in helping patients achieve optimal outcomes rather than being incentivized to order more tests or perform more services.

IBM Watson is to work with the FDA to investigate the use of blockchain technology, seen as one of the most secure ways of sharing patient data...(it) allows each separate patient data source to be a ‘block’ part of a complete, unalterable patient data profile which can then be shared securely with healthcare providers or research organisations...Initially focused on oncology-related data, the collaboration will look at how best to exchange data gathered from multiple owner mediated data sources such as Electronic Medical Records, clinical trials, genomic data, mobile devices, wearables, and Internet of Things technologies...The deal aims to overcome the limitations of large scale sharing of health data seen in the past, namely data security and patient privacy concerns during the data exchange process.

Renown Health is expanding its video health consultation network to four rural hospitals in Nevada...The videoconferencing service, known as telehealth, allows doctors in Reno to connect with patients in rural areas who may not have access to specialty services, like neurology or pediatrics...Kirk Gillis is the vice president for accountable care with Renown, and he says the need for specialty care in rural areas is critical...“A patient in a rural community, and their primary care provider in that community said, ‘You need to see a specialist.’ The nearest specialist is 200 miles away in Reno, Nevada. They may or may not forego that care, because they may or may not be able to make that trip,” he says...Four hospitals in Nevada have joined the network, including those in Lovelock, Hawthorne, Battle Mountain and Caliente.

According to survey results, published by Validic, more than 60% have used digital health technologies in clinical trials, and more than 97% plan to use such tools more over the next five years…Validic director of marketing told us...Medication adherence has always been a top priority for pharma, which is not surprising given the close correlation between participants’ compliance and the ability to get a drug to market faster and more cost effectively...Given advancements in technology, remotely tracking and monitoring prescription compliance has not only become a reality, but also an increased priority for pharma...As more evidence is available and sponsors continue to realize real-time, objective adherence data enables adaptive trial design and the ability to confidently make adjustments to protocols, we expect to see the interest in adherence technologies continue to rise…mobile applications have been a popular “entry point” for companies looking to being using digital health, “but we’re expecting to see greater use of wearables and sensors in the near-term...the respondents are most interested in reducing trial costs, while also being able to effectively demonstrate a drug’s efficacy in the real world...

The upcoming serialization requirements in the European Union and the United States have presented pharmaceutical companies with the challenge of balancing data integrity with performance when designing the appropriate information architecture...The pharma sector is currently undergoing the process of introducing new systems and processes for serialization...Companies offering networks for the storing and sharing of vast amounts of serialization data are challenged with creating a shareable world that is also scalable. For pharmaceutical companies, serialization will require a paradigm shift in IT architecture to deal with the combination of the vast amount of data stored within network databases and the operational processes associated with the upcoming requirements...In an industry as highly regulated and safety critical as the pharmaceutical sector, the integrity of the real world must meet the volume and performance of the virtual world. Cloud networks for serialization must offer security, together with speed and scalability especially with the introduction of new drug traceability requirements across the globe...

Tracy Glauser, MD—associate director of Neurology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center—discusses the role of bioinformatics in health care.

It’s back to the drawing board for the FDA...After years of slow reaction to pharma marketing online, the agency announced this week a new research initiative to better understand how consumers process short-form posts and ads...the FDA is trying to determine whether links in tweets and Google ads can independently convey all the necessary information about product risk...Under current guidelines, drug companies are required to balance the information they provide in character-space-limited posts. That means for a typical 140-character tweet, at least 70 characters must be dedicated to explaining risks and side effects...Regulatory change could be good news for pharma marketers, who have for a long time sought clarity on what they can and cannot do...

Only 34% of physicians find pharmaceutical content on HCP (healthcare professional)sites to be trustworthy, according to a new study by Decision Resources Group's Manhattan Research...We found that pharma is missing the mark when it comes to providing online content that physicians need in an easy-to-use way...DRG...surveyed 2,784 U.S. physicians in more than 26 specialties and found that only 27% of them viewed pharmaceutical websites as credible sources of professional information, compared to 77% of them who viewed third-party HCP-facing websites credible...62% of the physicians surveyed said that the information they get from drugmakers on third-party sites such as HCP sites and online journals “are always ads.”...What physicians need are resources for patient education, scientific information on drugs to help them make better treatment decisions, and continuing medical education, said Arnold. Seventy percent of physicians said it's crucial for drugmakers to provide educational resources rooted in science to gain their trust, yet half of them agree that no drugmakers are providing quality scientific online...

Sanofi Pasteur MSD’s journey to digital has helped sales rep engagement, as well as compliant content creation and distribution...Nearly three years ago, Sanofi Pasteur MSD1 was preparing to launch three new products and decided to take the opportunity to incorporate new, digital channels for better customer engagement… we proposed to reframe our commercial strategy with new technology…The company chose to standardise globally on a cloud-based multichannel CRM solution. Armed with new digital capabilities fully integrated across email, face-to-face, and web, the company’s sales representatives immediately began sending compliant emails directly from the system to customers and personally engaging with healthcare professionals via self-directed, interactive web presentations...The company tripled the expected adoption rates six months ahead of forecasts...To improve the speed of content development and distribution, Sanofi Pasteur MSD took a two-pronged approach...First, it sought to consolidate its agency partners globally, to harmonise content development and increase content reuse across the company...Second, the company looked to streamline content production by adopting a cloud-based commercial content management solution with a critical digital asset management component...The results were transformational, with content production centralised, but with local regions still able to adapt content to meet specific regulatory or cultural needs. And, as it was a cloud-based solution, global agencies now had easy access to promotional assets.

Does how a prescription for dermatologic medicine is written - either on paper or electronically—matter when it comes to whether patients will fill it and pick it up?...A new study...used data from a large, urban county health system to measure primary nonadherence—defined as not filling and picking up all dermatologic prescriptions within one year of the prescription date—and to study whether electronic prescribing impacted primary nonadherence...electronic prescribing increases the coordination between pharmacists and clinicians, less is known about how electronic prescribing affects the rate at which patients will fill or won't fill new prescriptions...The risk of primary nonadherence was 16 percentage points lower among patients given electronic prescriptions than patients given paper prescriptions...As the health care system transitions from paper prescriptions to directly routed e-prescriptions, it will be important to understand how that experience affects patients, particularly their likelihood of filling the prescriptions. Primary nonadherence is a common and pervasive problem. Steps should be taken to better understand why primary nonadherence happens and how it can be improved...