The official meraMD blog

Why should doctors join meraMD.com's network for medical professionals?

meramd — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 18:02:00 +0530

We ended the previous post with the promise of telling you about the benefits of joining the meraMD medical community. Here's how you can benefit from the community

Be noticed

Not only within the medical community, as a thought leader in your domain, but also in the online space. Internet usage for medical information is growing by leaps and bounds and you sure want to have online visibility.

Get the latest updates on news and events

Talk about the events happening in your area that you want your colleagues to attend. You can come across event notifications that you may have otherwise missed. Also you would want to get the pointers to the latest medical happenings in real-time. meraMD.com will also be organizing events for medical professionals in the future. These will be a value add to you.

Get advice from gurus

If you are young into this profession, you may want to seek advice from people who have "been there done that". The purpose of the community is to help you in this communication.

Become a part of the voice of the profession

You can jointly speak as a single voice on issues that concern your profession. e.g reservation of seats in medical colleges, postings in villages, etc. See how your colleagues think and react to the same issue.

Get services from other providers

We will carefully select and add service providers to the network; so that the medical community becomes a one stop shop for you for all services e.g. We have added a medico-legal expert on our board and have started providing legal services to our registered members. We plan to add other service providers such as job consultants, equipment manufacturers and software vendors on board.

Publish your press releases

Often times you would want to publish something significant for the benefit of the medical community. This is the place that helps you publish your articles, press releases, research queries, etc and get meaningful inputs from your fellow members.

Get back in touch with old friends from your medical college and your city

You can search for your old college friends. Over the past year we have got multiple requests to help locate someone. This will renew your old ties. Don’t forget to add your college name to your profile! You can also search for colleagues in your own city. This will help you refer patients to medical professionals in other discipline.

If the above benefits are not sufficient, let us know... we have many more reasons why joining the medical community will benefit you!

meraMD.com presents doctors social network

meramd — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:39:00 +0530

We have been silent for a while now, but we have not been idle. Last few months we have been working on a launching an online networks for doctors. And we have got good traction.. see all the activity happening here.

(http://doctors.meraMD.com)

This is a place where doctors can interact with their fellow physicians and discuss stuff on medicine|health|pharma|medical schools|medical news. In short, anything to do with medicine. Usually social groups are more general - discussions can range from coffee to girlfriends, and local news to world news, but since meraMD.com is a niche medical professionals' site, we expect the discussions to be related to the world of medicine.

There are quite a few doctors who are now active on the network and we hope this platform is useful to everyone. Did you ask how? More on that in the next post.. keep watching this space.

How meraMD is helping doctors to create online web presence?

meramd — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:30:00 +0530

In the last post we covered the 10 reasons why doctors should create online presence. This post is about what we are doing to help doctors create and manage their online web information. Today, patients with access to internet, researches about a doctor before going for consultation. Research is done broadly in two ways:-

Via search engines like google, yahoo etc.
Find a doctor directories on trusted health website.

Our public profile provides a greater likelihood that potential patients will find you online. See for yourself the power of our listing, perform a google (search) for geeta bajaj ardee city gurgaon. Her meraMD public profile comes up at top of all results. meraMD.com provides a search platform where in patients can search on the basis of area/city and speciality.

In today's age, if prospective patients are hungry for information and if they don't find information about a particular doctor, they will move to the next one. Also it is very important to provide the correct and accurate information about oneself and their professional achievement on the internet. meraMD provides complete control to doctor for updating and maintaing their public profile. Creating a public profile is easy 2 step procedure at meraMD.com.

So as a doctor if you want to expand your career, it's time to start thinking of the way you are represented online. So what are you waiting for - click here to signup for meraMD.com public profile.

10 reasons for doctors to create online presence

meramd — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 14:20:00 +0530

You can publicize practice to millions of potential customers. Profile helps in customer acquisition.
A profile page can save you a lot of money in communication and administration cost. Having full control of profile makes it easier to change and update.
You can publish profile information in other campaigns therefore creating a brand for yourself.
You can publicize the practice on the internet 24 hours a day and 365 days of the year.
Patients can be local, nationwide or global - they can find information easily about you.
Writing blog post is tremendous way to get your name out there to the general public. The purpose of writing is to get your patients to know you. When you write, you are not trying to sell something; you are basically providing useful information.
Ask, share and connect with other doctor's in communities on specific topics.
Continuous Medical Education - Get involved in educational activities which serve to maintain, develop or increase the knowledge, skills and professional performance and relationships that the physicians uses to provide services to patients, public and profession.
Receive information about medical profession related events happening in specific area/city.
Get to know what patients feel and think about you. Share the recommendations that you have received from your patients on the internet. These help new patients in decision making.

E-detailing: Here and Now

meramd — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:16:00 +0530

We have talked about the online marketing what and why already in our earlier posts here and here.

The question is: would this be relevant in the Indian context?

Globally, this seems to becoming a necessity as per this Data Monitor report.

"Existing sales and marketing models are considered unsustainable. Pharma has been slow to adapt and take advantage of the marketing opportunities offered by the internet. Meanwhile customers are increasingly using the web to source information. Pharma needs to evolve and engage with their customers online, or risk being left behind."

The increasing use of the internet by physicians is also something that pharma companies need to take into account as per this report here.

"Physicians are primarily using the Internet to access educational resources and high quality information. Pharmaceutical companies that provide online resources that help physicians practice medicine more efficiently and effectively will attract return site users and foster brand loyalty."

So it’s clear that the online channel must figure in the sales and marketing efforts of pharma companies. The next step would be to figure out build Vs buy decision. Some global companies have tried to build a dedicated online channel, analogous to a dedicated sales force.

Notable examples are Glaxo Smithkline https://www.gsk-ecs.com, and Merck & Co., Inc. http://www.Merckmedicus.com. This report talks about Merck's launch of “Januvia” in Europe using online channels.

For the Indian context we are proposing that online health portals can provide edetailing services to multiple pharma companies. It requires that the doctors access this information online in a secure and exclusive way. This is important because prescription drug advertising in mass media is not legal in India.

There can be multiple programs that be offered to the pharmaceutical companies. e.g.

- a 5 minute product educational program to the physicians on behalf of pharmaceutical companies. This can include text, audio and video

- online CME programs

- new drug launch and all the information about the drug

- live 2-way interaction with MRs online

How can meraMD.com help pharmaceutical companies?

meraMD.com allows only qualified doctors to register and access its internal information like forums and e-detailing platform. We have a large database of registered medical practitioners which puts us in a formidable position to get the best ROI for pharma companies. Pharma companies can also offer incentives (gifts and awards) to the physicians for participating in their programs. Our services are available 24*7 making it convenient for physicians to access these programs at their convenience.

Marketing managers in pharmaceutical companies who would like to learn more about our platform can write to us at sales at meraMD.com

meraMD - Better and faster

meramd — Tue, 06 May 2008 18:06:00 +0530

We have recently changed our hosting provider, which should improve the user experience at meraMD.com. Some users had complained about this, and since our registered users are doctors and hospitals, who are short on time, we decided to make this change at a priority. Unfortunately, there were a couple of technical glitches during this change, but we are back now and we hope that users who faced any issues in the last couple of days, would come back to register with us.

If you still face any issue, do not hesitate to write to customer care at meraMD.

Best wishes from meraMD team and thanks for your support!

E-detailing: Why

meramd — Fri, 02 May 2008 16:18:00 +0530

E-detailing is the new age communication channel between doctors/physicians and pharmaceutical companies. It enhances the capabilities of the current channels and delivers better returns on the overall investments in sales and marketing. This is why we think that e-detailing can be a win-win-win situation for everyone.

For Pharmaceutical Companies:

- Increase the quality and effectiveness of communications

- Make more effective sales calls each day, decrease sales force costs and increase sales

- Increase physician interaction time and prescribing rates leading to better market penetration.

- Improve competitive position by accelerating brand recognition and development

- Provide samples and additional information on demand

- Get instant feedback on the marketing communication, leading to lower costs if any communication modification is needed.

- Connect to the physicians who spend more time online, than with the medical representatives.

For Medical Practitioners:

- Receive the information you want, when you want it

- Receive a better service based on your own preferences

- Get far higher information content than traditional calls

- Get samples and responses to queries directly from the pharmaceutical company

For Medical Representatives:

- Follow up with doctors on their exact requirements; post an e-detailing session, leading to more fruitful visit to the physician

- Make more sales calls per day, since a lesser amount of time will be required to be spent with doctors who have chosen to be e-detailed.

E-detailing: What

meramd — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:46:00 +0530

This is the first blog of the many that we intend to write on e-detailing. Let’s begin with the simplest question - what is e-detailing?

E-detailing uses the Internet to promote products among medical professionals. It is the technological equivalent of the pharmaceutical representative’s traditional sales tool, used as a part of a sales visit to a healthcare provider. Since sales and marketing costs represent the single greatest expenditure for pharmaceutical companies today, there is a rise in alternate communication channels between the pharmaceutical companies and the healthcare providers. E-detailing is one such low cost communication channel. Pharmaceutical companies can use it to communicate product and service messages and related information to healthcare professionals.

E-detailing can have multiple forms:

1. Web based self-guided informational programs with no live communication.

2. Online, live, or phone assisted browsing through virtual sales presentations

3. Electronically enabled promotional, educational or service efforts

4. Online Events - Online seminar, CME event or web conference

E-detailing is also referred to as Electronic detailing, Virtual detailing, Online detailing, ePromotion Detailing, Physician marketing, Professional detailing, Physician detailing, eSampling

Next: E-detailing: Why

MeraMD in the news - LiveMint.com (The Wall Street Journal)

meramd — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:56:00 +0530

Here's what livemint.com has reported on how the Indian healthcare infrastructure is getting a booster shot.

"In New Delhi, MeraMD.com—a health portal that is six months old—aims to provide a countrywide database of medical practitioners, customer ratings of medical services and also sell medicines and insurance online." reports Archana Rai from Bangalore.

MeraMD.com recently launched its doctor and hospital recommendation service based on user feedback. Earlier during the year, meraMD.com launched online search for doctors and hospitals. We are seeing huge interest in our services and plan to increase our offerings for doctors and pharmaceutical companies in the near future.

Online health searches

meramd — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 07:15:00 +0530

In a recently published report from hitwise there is data on what people search for online. Quite a few people may be surprised by this, but health search tops the list in the category of searches. Nearly half the searches online are health related!

Though this data may be biased towards internet behaviour in US, we think that results in India or any other country are likely to be similar.

The complete report is available here.