Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19499

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Barnett J
How Quick Response codes can help pharma engage with patients
eyeforpharma.com 2011 Mar 22
http://social.eyeforpharma.com/story/how-quick-response-codes-can-help-pharma-engage-patients

Abstract:

Jeanne Barnett explores the ways Quick Response (QR) codes can create engagement and communities around products

Full text:

Quick Response (QR) codes have been around for 17 years, but are now starting to appear everywhere—on business cards, stamps, stickers, coupons, wrapping paper, boxes, magnets, letterheads, envelopes, signs, TV commercials, and billboards.

They also work on fabrics (T-shirts), metals, building materials, plastic, and anywhere you can put a readable sign.

They are 2-D targets, easily scanned by a mobile device with a camera (smartphones, iPad 2, XOOM, etc) and downloaded with a QR code reader application (often free).

As a patient advocate, I look for the most obvious benefit of a technology for patients.

Frequently, patients and doctors feel pressed for time and rush through an office visit.

Googling the right links to information is tedious and time consuming; baby boomer thumbs make lots of typing errors, and patients often arrive at websites only tangentially related to the medication or condition they are interested in, thus obtaining frightening or misleading information.

QR codes skirt the entry limitations; patients can interact with chosen information at their own pace.

For this reason, pharma companies should aim to have specific QR codes for each product imprinted on prescription bottles, boxes, delivery devices and more, leading directly to the product’s website.

This would allow mobile-enhanced patients direct access to pertinent educational information about use, dosage, safety, and cleaning instructions at the point of contact.

The target Web page would likely include animations and videos from doctors, scientists, and researchers.

Patients could find a doctor, a clinical trial, and give testimonials.

They may even make suggestions for research or communicate with other patients with similar medical needs.

Other likely places for pharma product QR codes are stickers and magnets targeting emergency information for strokes, heart attacks, or other urgent conditions.

Caregivers and patients could point and shoot at pages designed especially for them or their situation.

Consequently, innovative use of QR codes could lead to brand loyalty and become a compelling and efficient way for pharma to engage more fully with patients and possibly create communities around the products themselves.

Patient advocate Jeanne Barnett founded the e-patient community at cysticfibrosis.com in 1996. For more information, see Medrise.com

For more on QR codes, see the QR code generator at http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ and the QR code reader at http://reader.kaywa.com/.

For QR code analytics, go to http://qrcodetracking.com/.

For sample QR codes, go to http://www.beqrious.com/show/custom-qr-code-design.

For everything app-related, join the sector’s other key players at SFE Europe from March 29 to 31 in Dusseldorf and Sales Force Effectiveness USA from May 17 to 19 in New Brunswick, NJ.