Recently I talked about social bookmarking for physicians. Note that at the time I made a distinction between social bookmarking and a social network. Well this time I WILL talk about social networking for the MDs of the world, and the news comes from an interesting source, Nick Carr, with whom I have a love-hate relationship (well not Nick himself, but his thoughts and opinions).
… the fastest-growing community createdby physicians, for physicians.
Here, physicians aggregate observations from their daily practice and then – rapidly and in large numbers – challenge or corroborate each others opinions, accelerating the emergence of trends and new insighs on medications, devices and treatments. You can then apply the collective knowledge to achieve better outcomes for your patients.
In other words Sermo is a social network for physicians,where they can share their latest findings, information, procedures, etc. In my post on social bookmarking, someone had commented that physicians were not likely to use social networking services. Perhaps that’s true, but at least 30,000 have joined Sermo. Now it appears Pfizer wants to listen in.
As Nick notes, this is a risky proposition, both for Sermo and for Pfizer. What is the level of influence Pfizer have on the physicians? What do regulatory agencies have to say about this? And lets not forget Congress.
Regardless, this is an interesting development. Nick points out that social networks like Sermo are a different proposition, where ad dollars for eyeballs is not the business model, but rather freemium services built around the knowledge of the members of the network. As someone very interested in scientific social networks, perhaps there is a lesson there. Can one put a dollar value on knowledge? Pfizer for one was willing to shell out a certain number of $$$ to get access to the knowledge of a community of physicians. Could the same model apply to the scientific community?
My biggest concern here is the perceived notion of bias and influence (the $100 payment to doctors for advice by Sermo is definitely a bad idea), even if there is none. That is definitely very true of a pharma company joining a physicians social network, but is true in the sciences as well. Even the whiff of bias can result in rather muddied waters. A model relatively free of this perception, or so I think, would be one where a company could sign up to the service and essentially use the underlying network to mine information, information that might be geotargeted but otherwise anonymized. While this approach might work for physicians, the inherent openness of the scientific community (a good thing) makes the prospect a bit of a non-starter in the scientific space.
Social networking for physicians
Nick notes that Sermo has announced a relationship with Pfizer. I suppose this would be a good time to explain what Sermo is all about
In other words Sermo is a social network for physicians,where they can share their latest findings, information, procedures, etc. In my post on social bookmarking, someone had commented that physicians were not likely to use social networking services. Perhaps that’s true, but at least 30,000 have joined Sermo. Now it appears Pfizer wants to listen in.
As Nick notes, this is a risky proposition, both for Sermo and for Pfizer. What is the level of influence Pfizer have on the physicians? What do regulatory agencies have to say about this? And lets not forget Congress.
Regardless, this is an interesting development. Nick points out that social networks like Sermo are a different proposition, where ad dollars for eyeballs is not the business model, but rather freemium services built around the knowledge of the members of the network. As someone very interested in scientific social networks, perhaps there is a lesson there. Can one put a dollar value on knowledge? Pfizer for one was willing to shell out a certain number of $$$ to get access to the knowledge of a community of physicians. Could the same model apply to the scientific community?
My biggest concern here is the perceived notion of bias and influence (the $100 payment to doctors for advice by Sermo is definitely a bad idea), even if there is none. That is definitely very true of a pharma company joining a physicians social network, but is true in the sciences as well. Even the whiff of bias can result in rather muddied waters. A model relatively free of this perception, or so I think, would be one where a company could sign up to the service and essentially use the underlying network to mine information, information that might be geotargeted but otherwise anonymized. While this approach might work for physicians, the inherent openness of the scientific community (a good thing) makes the prospect a bit of a non-starter in the scientific space.
Disclaimer: Please read the standard disclaimer here to note any conflicts of interest
Further reading:
Wall Street Journal
Healthcare law blog
Scott Shreeve
Technorati Tags: Social Networking, Healthcare, Pfizer, Sermo