Name: Angie
Email:
Web Site: http://www.virgohealth.com
Bio: I am PR through and through, and with over 20 years in this game I have seen the industry grow and evolve beyond all expectations. However, we are seeing more changes now than ever before and the brave new media world is begging to be explored! As a young fresh faced girl from deepest Dudley, I always wanted to read the news, but have since been satisfied by consuming news (in vast quantities) and speaking to and about the media. My friends tell me I am outspoken, so why stop when it comes to PR and industry matters that mean so much to me? This blog is the perfect opportunity.
Posts by Angie:
Why EU restrictions on health information are good for pharma AND patients
December 8th, 2010Last week a huge majority of MEP votes signalled a change to the provision of information on prescription drugs to patients in EU member states. While direct-to-consumer advertising is quite rightly already banned in the EU, there was a lack of consistency in the way rules on patient information provision were interpreted by individual countries. As a result of the vote, two key changes were proposed:
- Broadcast and print media will be banned by law from providing information on prescription medicines (though there is a caveat to this below)
- Healthcare professionals will not publicly be able to give any information on prescription drugs to patients unless they declare links with pharmaceutical companies.
What can healthcare social media learn from the coolest brands on Facebook?
July 21st, 2010Recent blog posts over at Ignite Social Media show some great insights into what’s big on Facebook right now. For pharma and healthcare social media, Facebook offers quite a lot of opportunity, not least because of how easy it is to moderate comments and how ‘low-risk’ this is when compared to something like Twitter. While the only health ‘brand’ in Ignite’s top 50 is Breast Cancer Awareness (US), there is still much to be learned from non-health campaigns. So what are the brands with thousands of followers, who post hundreds of pro-brand comments on these pages, doing right?
In defence of healthcare communications
July 19th, 2010Our blog post last week ‘NHS White Paper: What the patient-centric approach means for healthcare communications’ ignited some debate on Twitter which we want to respond to. You can see the tweets people sent about the post on the page itself and our thoughts on these below.
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Old Spice: Is this the best social media campaign ever?
July 16th, 2010If you’ve ever wondered what makes a good viral social media campaign then take a look at the Old Spice campaign, which receives a great write up from Mashable (the social media blog). The whole point is that customising content engages people because it makes you feel special. As Mashable highlight, the team behind it managed to engage half of the Internet (yes, there are very impressive figures behind this hyperbole!). So how did it work and could something similar in health communications be even half as successful?
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NHS White Paper: What the patient-centric approach means for healthcare comms
July 13th, 2010Press coverage around the publication of the NHS White Paper has been at best skeptical of the coalition’s reforms and at worst damning. Regardless of your opinion however, there is one point on which all must accept… that people are taking more responsibility for their own health, and that empowering patients – chiefly through choice – is a predictable and necessary course. For healthcare communications, this is highly significant. If patients are empowered to make decisions, who will inform and educate them about these decisions?
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2010 Communiqué awards: A reminder of the impact and potential healthcare comms can have
July 13th, 2010Never has the saying ‘perception is reality’ been more true for healthcare communications than it is today, particularly given the publication of the NHS White Paper and its focus on outcomes and choice for all. Everyone is a potential stakeholder and the stakes are high. Each year the Communiqué awards commend excellence and best practice and we are reminded how healthcare communications can meet these challenges and deliver real improvements in healthcare information dissemination, provision and choice.
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What is the real future for newspapers?
July 8th, 2010Rupert Murdoch has just launched The Times paywall. Arch rival BBC Online is soon to launch its redesigned site. And a ‘Save the Daily Mirror’ Facebook page has launched as even more staff are cut. Last year most commentators predicted a slow death for newspapers. Indeed, 166 newspapers in the US ceased printing from 2008-9, and hundreds of UK journalists lost their jobs as their papers got shockingly thinner. So are newspapers really going the way of the telegram?
Google’s search for Parkinson’s cure: A role-model for pharma
July 6th, 2010Wealth can’t buy health, but can technology? Sergey Brin, Google co-founder, thinks it can and is using the search engine to try to find a cure for Parkinson’s disease, which his genes say he has an 80% chance of getting. Online clinical trial recruitment and health research is already progressing at an impressive rate, but this is different, and could end up being an important model for pharma and healthcare industry.
We’re becoming an ‘appy nation
July 1st, 2010It seems that no business is truly innovative unless they have a novel way of reaching out to their customers. Recently, Apple’s iPhone applications have opened up a new world of reference tools, games and ways to interact with each other. However, apps in the health space are a more exciting and potentially life saving prospect with medical reference guides, diagnosis tools and live GP consultations (coming to an iPhone near you soon).
Virgo HEALTH sets record straight on BBC Watchdog exposé of Virgo Healthcare
June 11th, 2010Last night BBC Watchdog exposed the shocking conduct of ‘Rogue Trader’ Virgo Healthcare, a company scamming vulnerable elderly people to buy mobility equipment, a company Virgo HEALTH (we, the good guys) are in no way associated with. It’s odd hearing your name on TV, especially in such a damning report. Jaws dropped and then the phones started ringing. Quite quickly we realised we had to put a plan in place…
