Cardiovascular Marketing Update: New Non-Surgical Heart Valve Shows Promise

We may soon have a new option to promote for treating aortic stenosis.

By some estimates, nearly one-third of patients with this life-threatening condition are unable to withstand traditional open-heart surgery to replace their aortic valves.

Results of a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine show that a new, non-surgical approach could give these high-risk patients a much better shot at living longer with fewer symptoms.

Heart specialists can now implant an artificial valve with a catheter and the whole procedure takes about 90 minutes, compared to an average of six hours for traditional surgery.

The prosthetic valve, made from pieces of a cow valve sewn to a metal frame, is positioned within the patient’s faulty valve, then expanded with a tiny balloon and fixed in place.

Some promising findings from the study:

• One year later, 69 percent of the patients who had the new procedure were still alive, compared to only 49 percent who had the traditional procedure.

• Three-quarters of people who received the new valve were free of cardiac symptoms, or had only mild symptoms, compared to only 42 percent of those who had the older therapy.

There were some negatives.  For instance, patients who had the new procedure were more likely to have severe strokes and bleeding from the catheter site in the leg.

While this new procedure is not yet approved by the FDA, with additional improvements, it may be a good alternative for many patients in the future.

Does Physician Involvement in Social Media Pose a Threat to Cardiovascular Marketing?

Physicians’ online activity is on the rise.

• In a recent study by Google, 86% of U.S. physicians said they use the Internet to gather health, medical or prescription drug information.
• They’ve joined the social networking revolution too. According to a survey by Mediamix International, 34% of physicians now use social media.

For the most part, I’m excited by these statistics.   Most of the heart and vascular marketers I know have been trying to encourage physician involvement in online activities for a long time.

But is there a downside?

I’ve been hearing a few horror stories lately.

• A marketing director friend recently told me about a patient who appeared at a cardiologist’s office without an appointment.  When the office staff politely told him that he must have his dates mixed up, the patient said, “Oh no, I’m supposed to be here.  I’ve been chatting with Dr. Jones on Facebook, and he told me to stop by.”
• Cases of doctors being sued for giving online advice in venues such as Facebook are also starting to surface.

Should these fears discourage marketers from involving physicians in social media efforts?

I hope not.

Physician and staff involvement adds credibility and knowledge that is hard to find in other sources. Online physician discussions offer amazing opportunities for both patient acquisition and retention.

But, it’s important to use common sense.

American Medical News recently published a post by Arthur R. Derse, MD, on this subject in its ethics forum.

I plan to share this with some of our clients as we plan for future campaigns.   I think it offers some great reminders that communications must be HIPAA compliant and that they should avoid giving specific advice to individual patients.

As Dr. Derse says, the bottom line is that online physician involvement in social networks should begin with the tweetable Hippocratic aphorism, “First, do no harm.”