By Caroline Gilmour, copywriter

There’s been a major shift in the way people get information about health. Instead of visiting the doctor, people are just as likely to turn to Google as their first step, while patient/illness blogs are giving patients a new way to interact with professionals and fellow sufferers to discuss their condition and treatment.

Yesterday I was at PN’s big event at its St Pete’s offices about the ‘21^st Century Patient’, in other words people like you and me who look for information and support from a number of different places, including online.

Our speakers from the world of health communications talked about the implications for pharma, for healthcare organisations and the government. Not being a healthcare expert myself – but being a person who ‘consumes’ healthcare services – it was a pretty interesting morning.

Here are some of the more interesting points, in my opinion.

The government will educate, but not regulate

Both the EU and the UK government want people to have more access to health information but are in danger of shirking their responsibilities, said Andrew Silverman, Partner at Kreab Gavin Anderson. For example, the concept of a ‘personal budget’ – where NHS patients choose what money is spent where in regards to their health – would help cut central costs, but it needs both an educated public AND regulation in order to result in better health outcomes. With the government looking to abrogate responsibility for regulation, that could be tricky.

Don’t try and strong-arm people into living healthy lives

Telling people what to do has never changed anyone’s behaviour in regards to health, said both Colin Shevills of Balance, and Barbara DeBuono, Global Director of Health at Porter Novelli. If we want a healthier population we need to use a social marketing approach and design communications and services around the customer – who they are, what they believe and how they live their life. But education and transparency is important – people need to make their own well-informed decisions.

Stop being scared of social media

Peter Pitts, Global Head, Regulatory and Health Policy, at Porter Novelli warned us that official recognition of social media as a health education tool – from the EU and other bodies – is going to be slow in coming. But pharma and healthcare organisations shouldn’t wait to make social media a central part of their information campaigns. Start conversations now and try and find creative ways to ensure you’re in line with legal and regulatory requirements. For example, reach out, but then link back to information that you know has been vetted. If you don’t make sure the information is out there, someone else will.

If you’re not online you may as well not exist

Porter Novelli’s Global Social Media Director, Danny DeVriendt, told us that that we’re dealing with a new generation that lives its life online. If information isn’t online then they simply won’t see it. It also isn’t true that the internet always gives unreliable information – Wikipedia has been proved more accurate than the Encyclopaedia Britannica, for example. Health organisations need to engage with customers online through a process of mapping (who’s talking?), listening (what are they saying?), responding (how can I help?) and influencing (why not try this?).

Print isn’t dead, it’s just wounded

Traditional press has taken a hit recently, but it’s still a trusted medium, said Oliver Stroh of OMD International and freelance healthcare writer Jane Symons.  People have a relationship with newspapers and still trust them. Newspapers are also still setting the news agenda and have contributed to successful campaigns such as the one to allow access to Herceptin.

We’ll be posting a link to the video of the event shortly.