Ellen Hoenig Carlson of Advance MarketWoRx is live from Day 2 of the Games for Health Conference.

With the completion of the Games For Health Conference Friday, it was very exciting to see several innovative efforts in place. Despite being the early days in Health eGaming, momentum is quickly building behind games and virtual worlds as potential “game changers” to improve education, engagement, and behavior to positively influence health.

As we head into the “virtual” future of marketing, here are seven key implications for pharma to think about:

1. Adherence: An educational and behavioral change focused game can be part of a ‘meaningful’ compliance and persistence-marketing program. Too often the current adherence RM programs are simply a few reminders that are either Web or direct mail interventions. A well-designed adherence health game could provide significantly more engagement to not only remind patients, but also teach them how to use and incorporate treatment into their daily regimen. And could furthermore, help them understand why on-going behavior changes and adherence are needed to maximize success.
2. Awareness/Diagnosis, Conversion: A well designed, fun game can be instrumental in helping people get diagnosed and/or feel better about new treatment options. Games can provide another channel and platform to further surround the consumer and provide learning and engagement opportunities that may appeal beyond traditional or Web media communications. Games have potential to turn one-way communications upside down in favor of two-way engagement.
3. Prevention: Virtual simulations of natural environments can dial-up coping mechanisms to help prevent relapse, improve self-esteem, and sustain learning. Memorial Sloan Kettering presented a pilot of a virtual reality simulation taking place in a home setting where an ex-smoker might be tempted in certain situations to smoke i.e. watching TV. While this virtual reality game was developed to prevent smoking relapse, one could also imagine designing a virtual simulation where ADHD kids or adults could practice social skills and coping mechanisms to be more successful in real life situations. Or even for diabetics or cholesterol suffers to ‘say no’ to sugar in social situations, etc. These types of games offer consumers the opportunity to test themselves prior to a real situation so that they can be ready for it.
4. Engagement, community building, and learning: Advergames that are relevant, easy, fun to play, and integrate the game and brand storyline in a seamless way can dramatically increase engagement, spawn communities, and become viral – always a struggle for the pharmaceutical industry. Well-executed advergames can also provide a rich source of qualified and highly motivated responders to a brand’s database for additional dialog and learning. Could Advergames complement and/or offer, in some cases, a more effective result than many of the relationship programs currently in place?
5. Consumer empowerment, with personalized 3D virtual realities and simulations, which can reflect the potential impact of possible behaviors and decisions on ‘their’ unique condition and quality of life. What would happen if we could enable a diabetic to watch what happens to their body in real time if they consume too much sugar? Or how strength building exercise and the proper diet does for bone preservation?
6. Medical training to enhance skills and execution. Some of the virtual simulations are pretty amazing. They can offer innovative ways to supplement training programs already in place with KOLs and sales reps, especially for new technologies and procedures that may require focused training to optimize usage and results.
7. Payer and managed care collaboration to improve healthcare prevention, diagnosis, delivery, and outcomes. Could this be a way to improve outcomes and bring meaningful value-add to your branded therapy, and a mechanism for the consumer to gain reimbursement for the adherence game with their branded medication? You be the judge. Start gaming!

Three pharmaceutical companies recently took big steps into the world of social media, launching Facebook applications that give consumers the ability to download and interact with health information material.

For those having a hard time keeping up with the rapidly evolving world of Web 2.0, a Facebook application (“app” for short) is an online program, game, or service that consumers can add to their Facebook homepage by giving the app permission to exist on their site. Most apps are simple and free to use.

Last week, Shire announced that it had teamed up with the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America (CCFA) to launch “Virtual IBD March on the Hill,” a Facebook application that provides health information about the disease. Shire will donate $1 for every person who installs the online program. The way the program works is that once the app is installed, users can choose a virtual shoe from a handful of designer styles, and virtually take part in CCFA’s seventh National Advocacy Conference “IBD Day on the Hill.” 

“We wanted to launch this program on Facebook to give people the opportunity to gather in one place to support the cause,” said Victoria Noble, product director for Shire’s ulcerative colitis treatment Lialda (mesalamine). “So much awareness is driven by walks, but folks are left behind because they can’t actually walk.”

The application is branded with Shire’s name, but no product is associated with it. At this time there are no plans to add an interactive tool or a forum, but Shire does intend to tie the site in with its sales force detailing material and professional marketing assets.

Asked how Facebook marketing differs from buying an online ad on a Crohn’s disease Web site, Noble told Pharm Exec that the application reaches a different audience. “The people involved in Facebook are looking for patient support and community, as opposed to someone that searches Google for treatment information,” she said.

Shire, however, wasn’t the first company out the door with a Facebook app. In March, Pfizer and EMD Serono partnered to release “MS Champions,” a much richer application featuring a unique map that shows the location of every registered user who is volunteering, walking, or riding in support of multiple-sclerosis treatments. The site also provides information about the disease and a link to a branded site for Rebif (interferon beta 1a), EMD Serono, and Pfizer’s MS therapy.

The companies are now gearing up for phase two of the project, which will include some form of interactive conversation, though the details are still being ironed out.

“One of the key things about Facebook is the ability for users to blog and express themselves on the site,” said Carole Huntsman, vice president of marketing for US neurology at EMD Serono. “We are working on our social media policy overall, and we have been looking at how we can evolve the site going forward.”

The plan is to allow users to blog in real time, but have comments reviewed before they are posted in order to make sure that all content is compliant with regulatory guidelines.

Today was Day 2 at Health 2.0 in San Francisco, and the overwhelming theme for me at the conference was this: it feels a lot like it did eight years ago.

In many ways, I am impressed with the number of companies that are all focused on the same goal of improving the way people consume healthcare and related information. Many more start-ups and early stage companies presented again in the standard, rapid-fire demo mode, where each company has less than four minutes to make their pitch. While this does allow for greater awareness of some of the new companies out there, it all starts to sound the same after a while.

A lot of companies talked of significant traffic to their sites or to their communities – but I had to wonder if in fact all of this traffic is coming from the same people, continuing to search many websites, hoping to find the answers or feedback that they want to hear.

A colleague of mine had an interesting insight: that the experience for a consumer to search for information online happens as a very intimate moment. If you or a loved one was just diagnosed with a serious disease, you will likely then turn to many websites to find answers and seek hope.

So where do you place your trust?

The thing is, there is no trust yet of a significant scale. As I said yesterday, Google is doing a great job to build that trust – they are the go-to place to start almost every search query, health-related or otherwise. This points to the great opportunity ahead. It is a wide open space now with many companies trying to create a brand, and become integrated into people’s lives when it comes to helping them understanding healthcare.

And that’s why it feels like it did during the Internet boom of 2000 – lots of companies, all chasing the same dollars, trying to carve out ownership of a vertical or space, each offering the same type of service solution. In time, most companies went out of business, there was a lot of consolidation, and a couple of big players paved the way.

Chances are, history will repeat itself. The reality is that the ad-driven revenue model just can’t sustain all of these new companies, and just about all of them depend on ads to survive. Furthermore, click through rates will continue to be extremely low such that companies will need to find alternative revenue streams to stay afloat.

One company did stand out for me today. Wellsphere has a Google-like interface that makes search really user friendly. Results are organized according to type, so it is easy to see if results from your search on a topic come from a blog, a journal article, a community, etc. It is one of the nicer user experiences I’ve seen to date, and worth checking out, and possibly the site that earns our trust.

Amidst all of the hype of what’s to come from Health 2.0 tools, I was a bit surprised that few companies spoke directly to the pharmaceutical companies, offering solutions for them that matter. With so much emphasis on the improvement of patient lives, it was odd to me that more energy is not being spent from these smaller start-up-like companies on building meaningful partnerships with large manufacturers by offering unique value.

I’m heading back home to Boston tonight and look forward to seeing how the vibe differs at the Eye For Pharma conference on Friday.

This is the 2nd year of the event, and there are close to 1,000 people here, with representation from pharma, biotech, VC firms and investors, agencies, and reporters.

The purpose of the conference is to showcase the evolution of the healthcare space in general, thanks to the proliferation of various web 2.0 tools available.

There were plenty of demos from big players and small ones, and everyone in general is quite bullish on where things are headed. There seems to be a general consensus, however, that these are still early days, with much innovation and greater adoption ahead.

Clay Shirky gave a great keynote address, helping us all see the power that can come from individuals and their web-based tools of empowerment. His book “Here Comes Everybody” looks like it is worth the read.

Google Health is clearly on a path towards success. They outshined Microsoft, Aetna, Yahoo, and WebMD with what they are building, and the smart money remains with the big G. Look to them to make the personal health record a reality – and soon – and it will be a tool that finally makes sense for the consumer to use with ease. Of course, this will also make sense for Google, as they will figure out the right way to monetize this with the series of other free tools that they offer. Which is why they are Google. And which is why they will win. They have the creative license to succeed where the other guys will fall short.

Sermo and PatientsLikeMe stood out as leaders in the pack of Health 2.0-companies, both are now a couple of years into their business model, and both doing well. They are challenging the status quo, and should be applauded for their good work thus far.

Much discussion centered around patient communities, The Long Tail, and search. Organized Wisdom proved that they are on to something, and I suspect they will remain a strong player in vertical search in the coming years.

Edelman released a new report today that explores consumer attitudes towards healthcare and information. You can access the full report here. Of note, friends and family rank as the #1 source for health information, more than a physician (69 percent vs. 65 percent). Amazing…

Stay tuned for more highlights from Day 2, coming tomorrow.