Healthcare Social Media Efforts of Medtech Firms Deserve an "F"

Medtronic CEO Omar Ishrak may be engaging with social media denizens on Twitter and even paying heed to their demands, but the healthcare social media efforts of most device companies, and this includes the Minnesota device maker, is fairly dismal.

Here is another set of statistics to prove that. A healthcare marketing consultancy has created an infographic on how companies can reach customers on social media, and as part of that created a list of top healthcare companies on Twitter based on their following. And guess what? Out of the top 5, only one company - GE Healthcare - is a device maker. If you up the count to top 15, you get three more - Johnson & Johnson, Bausch & Lomb and Baxter. 

That pharma plays an outsize role on social media is of course part of their operating/marketing model because consumers are more likely to be swayed by communication from drug companies than someone who is looking to get a pacemaker. Patients are dependent on their doctors for that.

Yet Stryker's direct-to-consumer knee campaign is testament that patients respond to smart marketing from device manufacturers. But social media is not simply a marketing tool.

Presence on it means that companies are acknowledging that other points of view count and they must go where patients reside. The sooner the device firms realize this and embrace it, the better.

The quantified-self movement and the rise of mhealth and digital health means patients are more involved in their healthcare than ever before. Simply communicating with doctors to tout the next breakthrough device will not cut it any more. 

Device companies will do well to become more patient-centric.

Here 's the infographic that Appature created:

-- By Arundhati Parmar, Senior Editor, MD+DI
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