August 22, 2012 ·
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Industry Insights from Paul Meade, M.Sc, MPH
Recently, I read a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece titled “Why the Doctor Can’t See You” by John Goodman, President of the National Center for Policy Analysis. The central point of Goodman’s piece suggests that under the Affordable Care Act the “demand for healthcare will increase dramatically,” and there simply won’t be enough physicians in the United States to provide all this care.
Really?
While the United States does rank 53rd out of 145 countries in physicians per capita, with 2.4 medical doctors for every 1000 people, our country ranks higher than Japan at 2.1 MDs/1000, Canada at 2.0, China at 1.4, and India at 0.6 (according to a World Health Organization report). The global average is 1.4 doctors per 1000 people. The highest doctors-per-capita healthcare systems are those in Cuba (6.7/1000) and Greece (6.2/1000).
What does all of this mean? Does this mean that Cuba and Greece have a much healthier population than the U.S.? Canada has a universal healthcare system, offering healthcare to everyone, at a per-capita rate of 2.0 doctors. Can Canada provide its citizens with adequate healthcare delivery? It can, and it does. Can Japan handle healthcare demand for its people with only 2.1 MDs per 1,000, especially given its aging population? I dare say that it can, and it will.
So, if ... read more »
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Affordable Care Act Bloomberg doctors doctors per capita health and wellness healthcare healthcare programs healthcare services healthiest nations healthy nation John Goodman National Center for Policy Analysis ObamaCare Paul Meade physicians primary care physicians Thought Leader Select universal healthcare US healthcare system Wall Street Journal World Health Organization
August 16, 2012 ·
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Industry Insights from Brian Castle
There are many ways that life science companies approach finding the right key opinion leaders in medicine to collaborate on next-generation treatments.
Some have the privilege of retaining staff members with decades of experience, during which they get to know the top doctors in their therapeutic area or disease state. This do-it-yourself (“DIY”) method can be fraught with challenges, but it can also provide valuable insights through sound relationship building.
Other companies, to fill gaps in compliance or expertise within a given area, will contract with research organizations for their KOL work. There are now over fifty companies (and counting) engaged in some form of key opinion leader identification, profiling, mapping, or engagement planning activities, and that’s not even counting the dozens of specialty medical communications agencies and larger agencies that list medcomms as a specialty area.
Contracting with external vendors can result in great work, full of insights on the right medical professionals who can make a difference in whether a product succeeds or fails in getting in the right hands—those of patients. But it can also result in really bad work—a data dump—that basically tells the buyer nothing.
We can define bad research quite easily—you know it when you see it. It often comes from methodologies that are suspect at first glance, those that rely upon too much ... read more »
TAGS: Brian Castle clinical trials communications agencies editorial boards key opinion leaders key opinion leaders in medicine KOL identification KOL mapping KOL profiling KOL relationship building KOL research life science companies life sciences media exposure medical communications agencies medical journals medical professionals patient health public health regulatory approval reimbursement approval scientific advisory boards scientific journals Thought Leader Select thought leaders treatment guidelines
