Online patient support groups have revolutionized the way people make decisions about their own health care. In recent years, thousands of groups have formed on the Internet, ranging from moderated forums on large sites such as WebMD and iVillage to hundreds of thousands of independent patient-run support groups such as those at Yahoo! Groups or Google Groups.

People who otherwise would never engage in an online discussion with strangers, let alone post personal or sensitive information to a message board, visit these groups in record numbers. Patients from all demographics turn to the Internet community to gain support, research medical conditions or make treatment decisions, and like all consumers, they often put higher levels of trust in word-of-mouth recommendations from others than they do traditional advertising.

In doing so they’ve created an unprecedented source of information for both patients and healthcare organizations alike.

The Nielsen BuzzMetrics Pharma-Health Practice provides in-depth access to all the patient opinions, reactions and attitudes that matter to your new drug, brand or product line.

Pharma*BuzzMetrics: Powered By BrandPulse®

BrandPulse Internet

The BrandPulse Internet-monitoring solution lets you listen in on the rich and continuously candid conversations that are under way online, allowing you to gather vital information while effectively balancing your obligations towards patient privacy. Discover the unscripted and often startling ways that patients discuss conditions and make treatment decisions, or how they feel about therapeutics in which they are already engaged.

BrandPulse Insight

BrandPulse Insight includes deep, issue-specific studies that help you better understand existing events, news and issues that are affecting—or have the potential to affect—the entire pharmaceutical/health marketplace. These conversations and insights are unaided and free of the bias found in solicited responses.

Pharma*BuzzMetrics Insights

• Measure, analyze and compare the buzz on your drug, product or device. Is it growing or shrinking? Negative or positive?
• Tune into the candid opinions and experiences patients are sharing openly with each other about treatments, clinical trials and alternatives.
• Be alerted to discussions that are emerging from published reports, medical journals, consumer publications, health watchdogs and other sources that provide information about the pharma-health field.
• Discover specific insights and findings that are pertinent to your specific research objectives.
• Learn which drugs, products or alternatives are being compared to your products.
• Determine which competitors you are compared to most frequently.
• Gauge which new drugs, technologies and new/existing products people are talking about, and with what kind of volume and emotion.
• Determine where consumers are congregating on the Internet to discuss your brand/competitors and other issues. Where are patients/consumers searching and what information are they providing in order to find open-minded or top-notch physicians and practitioners in a particular geographic region or specialty?
• Locate your most vocal supporters and detractors, and learn how you can leverage their influence.
• Discover and analyze key areas of product satisfaction/dissatisfaction.
• Measure whether your marketing campaigns are as effective as they could be.

Put New Marketplace Dynamics to Work for You

Online patient support groups are one of the most valuable sources of patient data ever, and within these groups, certain individuals are emerging as the new health experts—sources of advice and information for hundreds of other patients and consumers. Other patients who belong to hard-to-reach niche segments, such as newly diagnosed patients, often speak frankly online, providing key insights for drug researchers, developers and health-care practitioners.

Because of the sheer volume of people online, they can exert greater influence and market impact than physicians. They’ve changed the marketing dynamic forever.