My colleague Jeff Leebaw and I hosted a dinner for health care bloggers in the Boston area, on Wednesday night.

As always, these casual meetings are enlightening for all the participants, many of whom have virtually communicated, but never met. A lot of interesting discussions came up, and lots of open-ended opinions. Jeff, VP of Corporate Communications at Johnson & Johnson was interested in how a company like ours, with experience and expertise in so many areas of health, could bring value to patients through social media.

Charlie Baker, CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, and author of the blog Let’s Talk Health Care , posed another interesting question: “How is social media going to affect my business model in the future?” There was no easy answer to that, other than acknowledging that the trend towards communicating with current and potential health care consumers is growing rapidly. It seems that a social media strategy certainly needs to be part of any business plan going forward, for all health care providers of goods and services. Other participants in the dinner included Dr. Gwenn, a pediatrician whose blog, Dr. Gwenn Is In deals with such topics as child health, parenting and pop culture. She participates in many social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook.

Why is Twitter so popular and widely-adopted? No one knows for sure, but it sure is, and the major problem seems to be not letting it totally distract you from the rest of your work during the day!

Laurie Edwards, author of the book, Life Disrupted: Getting Real About Chronic Illness in Your Twenties and Thirties, was another guest. Both her book and blog, A Chronic Dose give a very interesting patient perspective on being young and living with chronic illnesses. Rounding out the table were Shwen Gwee from Vertex Pharmaceuticals who authors the blog, Med 2.0; Jack Barette of Wego Health (picture follows)

….and Danielle Mancano of SHIFT Communications, which performs paid consulting work for Johnson & Johnson. Jack had, what I thought, was a profound opinion about social media, and to some extent, an answer to Jeff’s question. He feels that the social media space offers the last best chance for health care companies to meaningfully re-engage with consumers and to “take back” their reputation as a constructive partner. All in all, a great meeting, and a terrific dinner too, at Abe & Louie’s on Boylston St.

Disclosure: Johnson & Johnson paid for the dinner, but for no other expenses or compensation.

This week on the Johnson & Johnson health channel on YouTube, Rob Halper uploaded some videos on caregivers, including the following about Michelle, who has asthma, and her husband, Gary, who is her caretaker:

To support caregivers, Johnson & Johnson created Strength for Caring, which provides information and ways for caregivers to connect. I wrote about it some time ago, and have since been watching it with interest.

This week I focus on newborns, and preterm babies, in particular. I attended this moving photo shoot. This image says it all…

Healthy Babies are Worth the Wait®, Kentucky
 
Johnson & Johnson Pediatric Institute, L.L.C. partners with the March of Dimes and the Kentucky Department for Public Health on “Healthy Babies Are Worth the Wait,” a three-year prematurity prevention initiative to demonstrate a reduction in the rate of preventable preterm births in targeted areas. This image displays the small, delicate feet of a premature infant in a neonatal intensive care unit. (Photographer: Shraddha Borawake, a Johnson & Johnson – International Center of Photography Fellowship recipient) 

To help me face the day, I usually wake up to the news from my local National Public Radio affiliate, WHYY out of Philadelphia. This AM, as I digested the latest on the bailout package and other news, I had a pleasant surprise.

WHYY’s health and science reporter, Kerry Grens, did a short, yet thoughtful piece on the complexities faced by companies in the highly regulated pharmaceutical industry as they try to use social media to interact with the people who use their products.

Through a series of interviews, some of which were conducted at the recent ePharma conference in Philly (that’s where she interviewd me and Steve Woodruff) Kerry explained that as people increasingly trust health information provided by other like-minded individuals online rather than more traditional advertising or marketing messages, companies are trying to get their arms around how best they too can be part of those online conversations.

It isn’t easy. As Kerry pointed out, one big hurdle is “something called adverse event reporting” that companies need to report to the Food and Drug Administration.

Now those who read this blog know that I’ve often discussed approaches taken by Johnson & Johnson, our operating companies and others to get involved online . (here, here and here, for instance) Getting involved not only requires an understanding of the risks, but also new processes to handle adverse event reports and ensuring there are people involved who can respond quickly to questions or new developments.

As I’ve said before, though, it is only by experimenting and trying out new approaches (perhaps by first taking small steps ) that you can get a true understanding of the risks and how best to mitigate them. Yet it is also important for people who are looking for information and connections online to understand the limitations that companies in highly-regulated industries are under — and that what may look like “baby steps” are really earnest efforts to get involved.

The complete podcast of the segment is available on WHYY’s site.

This week on the Johnson & Johnson health channel on YouTube my colleague Rob Halper uploaded a video about staying in shape:

Can a picture really be worth a thousand words? I think so. Starting this week, I’ll share with you a “Giving Back” Image of the Week … images from communities we support in one form or another through our charitable programs around the world. Graduates from New York’s International Center of Photography School take many of these images as part of a fellowship program with Johnson & Johnson to capture everyday moments in schools, hospitals, houses of faith, and other community settings. The resulting images are powerful expressions of our partners’ work – the many NGOs and nonprofit groups at the core of these efforts. Enjoy…

Pratham (Mumbai, India)Pratham works to reduce and eliminate child labor practices. Since 2005, Pratham has removed 15,000 children from work situations. Johnson & Johnson supports Pratham’s efforts to provide education, health and residential services to transition children back into childhood. (Photographer: Janea Wiedmann)

Though I’ve been Twittering a bit, I’ve kept most of those Tweets to personal topics and thoughts — and have tried to steer clear of topics that directly concern Johnson & Johnson and its businesses.

It’s not because I don’t appreciate Twitter or that I don’t want to join in some of the conversations that concern my job, my profession or Johnson & Johnson. Far from it. In fact, I think there is much to be gained by joining the Twitter party.

I guess it’s because I’m a bit, well… a bit old-fashioined, and have tried to keep my personal life and beliefs from mingling too much with what I do at work. In fact, my concern about what would happen if I “crossed the streams” has often stayed my hand when I’ve been on my personal Twitter account.

So with that in mind, I’m giving “work Marc” a voice on Twitter through a new Twitter handle — @JNJComm – where I will share information about Johnson & Johnson, some thoughts on topics that concern my professional life and be on hand to help out with questions about the company.

Apparently there is something of a tradition at the ePharma Summit that involves the attendees of the Chairman’s dinner generating a list of words that the Chairman then has to work into his opening remarks the following morning. Silly, but true.

This year, however, while attending the meal that Google provided, I was also given the dubious honor of writing a post for JNJBTW that included these words. Perhaps it was the nice wine that I had over dinner, but I foolishly agreed. Let’s hope THIS doesn’t become a tradition. So here goes…see if you can find those “key” words that I was asked to include in my final thoughts on this event. (Serious readers please ignore and forgive the following poor attempt to seamlessly weave these words into my post…)

As the second day of the conferences came to a close, it was clear, even to those of us who are social media shrimps or gambas, that now more than ever companies in regulated industries like the pharmaceutical industry have to get more involved with the online communities that are discussing the products they make and sell.

That said, this year’s meeting had a distinctly more optimistic feel, which underscored the fact that more and more is being done in this industry. In the case of Johnson & Johnson, much has changed since last year’s meeting last year. Among the activities we’ve been involved in during the past 12 months, we launched the Johnson & Johnson health channel on YouTube and had several efforts to interact with people on Facebook. Like the tasty croquetas, boquerones or montaditos that comprise a meal of tapas, each of these efforts may just be a tiny mouthful, but they whet the appetite for more to come and provide some flavor of what the main course will involve.

As if underscoring the fact that this industry at last is starting to get their arms around social media, for the first time the meeting organizers liveblogged the event and encouraged participants to Twitter — a fact not missed by John Mack who described this as the meeting’s organizers practicing what they preach.

I’m at the ePharma Summit in Philly today, and had the pleasure of being on a panel yesterday with Fabio Gratton of Ignite Health and Fard Johnmar of Envision Solutions that was moderated by Robert Goldberg of Drugwonks to talk more about what companies in regulated industries need to do to get involved online. Oh — and to save me the trouble, someone has thoughtfully posted on what was covered.

Margaret has a great post on Kilmer House that I thought of interest. In it, she examines how the company managed through difficult economic times in 1893, 1907 and 1929.

As she explained:

…while the past may have little or no bearing on current or future events, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the difficult economic cycles in 1893, 1907 and 1929, and how the Company steered through those times…by looking at the bigger picture and managing for the long term.