Millions of health citizens, consumers, patients and caregivers flock to Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia every day the world over to seek health information, advocate for patients’ access to a cancer therapy on a health blog, engage in peer-to-peer health care in a social network, and bolster each others’ management of chronic medical conditions in a chat community.

Yet the pharmaceutical and medical device industries rank well behind other industries vis-à-vis the use of social media, asserts Engaging patients through social media, with the punchline question: is healthcare ready for empowered and digitally demanding patients? from the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, published on 21st January 2014.

The report discusses the chasm between people (those named above – health consumers, et. al.) and their use of social media for health, versus relatively low engagement with social media among pharma and med tech firms. Murray Aitken, Executive Director of the IMS Institute, explained in a webinar held earlier this month that about one-half of these companies are engaging in social, and half, he said, “are on the sidelines.” The #1 excuse, he asked and answered: “FDA regulation.”

See on healthpopuli.com