Last year, Silja Chouquet of WhyDotPharma and Andrew Spong of STweM launched a unique pan-European initiative designed to “explore and highlight how social media could 
revolutionize healthcare by increasing patient focus, improving access to services and gathering high quality patient outcome data.” They launched a twitter conversation community, #hcsmeu, that currently boasts an active global membership and conducts weekly lively conversations on a range of topics focusing on social technologies in the European Union and beyond.
Now, Chouquet and Spong are taking their community building and collaborative efforts offline. On March 31, 2010, #hcsmeu will hold its first event in Berlin, the HCSMEU unConference. Choquet and Spong were kind enough to conduct an extensive conversation with me (via e-mail) focusing on the evolution of #hcsmeu and how social technologies are impacting Europe. This is the first part of our conversation. Click here to read Part II of this interview.
1. Please tell us why #hcsmeu was founded and what you are trying to achieve — especially as it relates to consumer education and empowerment.
We believe social media can revolutionize healthcare by increasing patient-focus, improving access to healthcare services and gathering an unprecedented volume of high quality patient outcome data It is our opinion that social media has the potential to augment the targeting of medical research, improve the quality and delivery of care, and advance patient education and empowerment. We believe that social media usage should be facilitated by services that are free of charge at the point of use. Inherent within this belief is an expectation on our part that the principles directing the use of social media in healthcare should be inclusive not exclusive, managed rather than controlled, and serve at all times in advancing the collaborative, innovative and progressive character of its activities.
Our mission is to drive forward the adoption of social media across Europe in order to improve the quality, access, value and effectiveness of healthcare delivery to patients.
2. When it comes to the use of the Internet by patients/consumers for health and wellness purposes, what’s the situation in the European Union (EU)? What countries represent the major “centers of activity” when it comes to new and Internet technologies in Europe?
- According to a study by Manhattan research (European Pharmaceutical Marketing, 2008), empowered EU patients talk to their physicians about health information they find online:
- Nearly 150 mio EU patients have accessed health information online
- 50 mio of them are talking to their physician about what they found
- About 40% of European physicians recommend health websites to their patients.
Another study, Media Scope Europe 2008, demonstrates that European health consumers with Internet access search for health information more often. The “golden youth” (25-34 year old) segment in Europe uses Internet as a main source of information, at par with TV. This particular segment of health consumers has sought 16% more health information, as a result of increased Internet access.
In general, countries like Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands seem to be early adopters in terms of social media in healthcare, while countries like Germany might be lagging behind. Yet these are all gross generalizations, as we all know that in social media, it take one person to get active to make the power of the crowd emerge.
3. The European Commission has suggested that the Internet could be harmful to consumers because of the wealth of inaccurate or dubious information available online. What’s causing this information void and how have health and pharmaceutical companies responded?
Firstly, there is a language divide in Europe. Those Europeans that speak English well can access the rich information available in the US and the English speaking world, but those that do not have much less information available.
Secondly, Europe is extremely diverse in terms of cultures and health care systems. It is thus much harder to provide specific information tailored to each country on a larger scale.
Finally, due to unclear guidance on Internet communications and esp. to what could be interpreted as Direct to Consumer advertising by authorities, pharmaceutical marketers tend to be much more careful about engaging with patients on the Internet than in the US. Thus, they provide less information in general in the European context.
Despite these hurdles and barriers though, some companies have been extremely successful in creating great examples of social media use in Europe. Some even argue that in the absence of the ability to directly advertise products to consumers, European marketers have created more innovative and value-added platforms in social media than in the US.
4. People tend to believe that all of the action around health social or new media is taking place in the United States. Is this perception accurate? If not, in what areas are the European Union ahead of the U.S. (e.g., mobile Web use, etc.)?
It would be interesting to pitch that question to the Health Care Social Media Europe community just to see the volley of responses that would be fired back as ripostes. No, I think that perception is fundamentally incorrect. Just by way of an example, the Netherlands (where Health 2.0 is pronounced Zorg 2.0 http://www.slideshare.net/group/zorg20) has been among the first to mobilize and is forging strong alliances between health care professionals and participatory medicine activists.
One of the great things about being in the privileged position of having access to the thoughts of so many of the leading Health 2.0 practitioners within our community is sensing the groundswell of activity that is emerging within Europe. If the answer to that question is not evident from across the Atlantic at the end of 2009, we are pretty confident that you will not need to ask where to find it in twelve months time. One of the things we are looking forward to doing with our new hcsmeu.com home base which Fabio Gratton of Ignite Health gave so generously of his time in helping create for us is provide an exhaustive chronicling of emerging health 2.0 activity as it happens. We want it to be the go-to place for health care social media information in Europe.
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