The food just kept on coming as we tucked into plates of hummus, tabbouleh, halloumi, roasted lamb and chicken. This was finished off nicely with a surprise song and dance by the waiters as they presented Janki and Charlie with chocolate cakes.

Happy Birthday guys!

The dashboard displays a range of activity including the board name, date posts, clicks, likes and number of repins, all very useful stuff to help tailor your material to what’s working well. It also has the ability to schedule pins to catch your audience just at the right time.

Creators Wilco de Kreij and Mark Ramos, (from The Netherlands), were inspired by the success of Pinterest analytics tool Pinerly.

There are only limited features at the moment, but very soon they hope to set more live including detailed statistics and pinning and tracking non-WordPress posts (just to name a few). Also its worth noting that plug-in will only work on self-hosted WordPress websites on WordPress.org.

As WordPress.com only allows plugins from the official WordPress plugin directory WP Pinner has made this very handy video to explain just what you need to do…

Happy Pinning!

The app was developed by ideas company Cundari after paediatric oncologists at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto were looking for a way to minimise pain, improve quality of life and reduce distress for cancer patients and their families.

Pain Squad is a police-style game with missions and rewards designed to engage kids enough to fill out their pain diaries twice each day for two weeks.

“Kids using the app will start to understand what’s working for them in managing their pain,” says Mike Orr, Cundari lead digital strategist. “It really empowers them and makes them feel like they have some control.”

The information entered into the app will be used in SickKids’ ongoing research on paediatric cancer.

Pain Squad is expected to roll out in different hospitals around Canada in the coming months.

Do you think apps like Pain Squad are the future for cancer research and treatment? Should more hospitals use apps to engage with patients? Let us know what you think.

Up until now LinkedIn (the world’s largest professional social network) has been a bit behind with its app development. The iPhone app was only released last year, and was fairly limited in its design and capability, and poor iPad users were stuck having to use this version too – not really making the most of its high tech Retina display.

The LinkedIn app now has a sleek looking clear and simple main screen. One of the most interesting things they’ve made more prominent in the app (versus the web) is the list of users who have viewed your profile. A secretly addictive and powerful tool for networking.

The app has some lovely design features as well – really making the most of your tablet experience. It’s not just pretty, it’s clever too! It syncs up with your Google or Exchange calendar and pulls out your day ahead for you, giving you rich streams about the people you’re meeting, and highlights from the news.

LinkedIn say “We know that our members use their iPads heavily during the morning and evening hours. This “Coffee & Couch” behaviour is so pronounced that we designed our new app to make every professional feel like they have their own personal assistant. Imagine having one place where you can get all the info you need about who you’re meeting with that day, trending and timely news that is impacting your industry, who’s changed jobs and what your co-workers are sharing, liking, and commenting on. We’ve pulled all this for you, all in one place.”

Let us know what you think!

It’s a real treat – the 19-second “Me At the Zoo.” The video stars YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim, chatting to camera about elephants having “really, really long trunks, and that’s cool.”

But isn’t that the beauty of YouTube? Everyone can tell a story (no matter how high tech) and share it with the world in matter of moments.

As I’m sure you already know, we are great advocates of video here at Brandcast Media, and this video really did pave the way for biggest and most popular video sharing website we’ve ever known.

YouTube currently houses more video than any other site in history, and since its buy out by the internet giants Google in 2006, it just keeps on growing.

For all our fellow video geeks here are some other staggering YouTube facts:

• 60 hours of video are uploaded every minute – that’s one hour of video uploaded every second
• More than 4 billion videos are viewed every day
• More than 3 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube
• More video is uploaded to YouTube in one month than the three major U.S. networks created in 60 years
• In 2011, YouTube had more than 1 trillion views or almost 140 views for every person on earth

The power of video is just huge, and a very important engagement tool for us and our clients here at Brandcast.

What’s your favourite YouTube clip?

Doing digital healthcare since 2005, Brandcast Health is an independent, multi-award winning digital and social media communications agency with video at the heart of what we do. Our clients include pharma, biotech, diagnostic, technology and consumer health organisations as well as hospitals, medical societies, patient groups and medical publishers.

Showcasing examples of our work – both agency-led and direct to end client, the portfolio covers our expertise in video, web, mobile, interactive, social media and eLearning. Please do check it out, and let us know what you think. We’d love to hear from you.

Brandcast Health Portfolio

With the new adverts supporting phrases such as ‘140 characters doesn’t equal staying in touch’ and ‘upgrade from a wall post for a first class conversation’ Skype suggests that we have ‘lost touch with humanity’ through Twitter and Facebook. The ads not only downgrade the quality of communication offered by networks such as Facebook and Twitter, but they also raise a mirror to a culture that has become overly automated and lacking real human contact.

“With so many ways to communicate, there has been a shift towards communicating in ways that are less conversational, more transactional—less human,” says Francie Strong, Skype’s director of global customer-base marketing.

But perhaps Skype are a little quick to attack such loved platforms? Especially ones that offer such different services.

The bullish campaign ignores the fact that last year Skype signed a deal with Facebook to allow its users to make video calls using Skype technology. The two companies have also shared instant messaging technology – proving they are actually a lot closer than you might think. With the hashtag #timeforskype, Skype also rely heavily on the very platforms they are slating for their social media campaign. In another ironic twist, those signed up to Skype’s Facebook page will be able to take a picture of their face and share it with their Facebook friends for the duration of the campaign.

Do the ads make you more inspired to use Skype? Or does the negativity of the campaign leave a bitter taste in your mouth?

Perhaps this is something to Tweet about.

Google+ will now offer profile pages that will include bigger photos, similar to Facebook’s Timeline, and feature a chat list that puts friends front and center on your page. Another major update involves how users can navigate around the news stream. Instead of static icons at the top, there’s a ribbon of apps on the left. The ribbon allows users to drag apps up or down to create the order, hover over certain apps to reveal a set of quick actions and show or hide apps by moving them out of the section.

A dedicated Hangouts page has also been added to the site, so people can have quick access to public and On Air video chat hangouts. This will allow Google+ users to meet new people and watch live broadcasts, as well as enter new rooms via a rotating billboard of Hangouts.

What do you think of the redesign? Do you think Google+ will ever be able to compete with Facebook and Twitter in the healthcare space?  To date, uptake by Pharma has been limited. The Roche page is only in 2o2  this people circles at this stage.

Since the page was launched nearly 18 months ago, Janssen says it has had to remove a larger and larger proportion of posts.

Janssen said: “Whenever a post on this page mentions a specific drug by name, or talks about the efficacy of a particular treatment is (or its side effects), we have to ask for it to be changed, or pull it [down].”

The firm said this has been ‘stifling worthwhile discussions’, and having to keep removing these posts had become too onerous for the firm.

All firms have been forced to make commenting available on their Facebook sites since August last year, although they are allowed to change or remove comments once they have been made.

Janssen markets its Stelara drug as a treatment option for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, and was using the site as a disease awareness campaign for the disease.

The firm said it remained committed to providing ‘balanced information and resources’ on its Psoriasis 360 web site, Psoriasis 360 YouTube channel, as well as its Twitter account – and stressed that these have not been affected by its Facebook decision.

The Psoriasis 360 project has been very successful, and Janssen picked up two awards for it from the PM Society’s Digital Media awards last year.

Psoriasis 360 wanted to use all aspects of social media to help with its disease awareness campaign about psoriasis, and its Facebook page was established to allow an online discussion about the disease.

Janssen said that it has consulted with the The Psoriasis Association, a charity it helps fund, and agreed that their Facebook page would be a good place for users of the Psoriasis 360 Facebook page to go to from now on.

The page is still viewable and the public can make comments, but Janssen plans to close it down completely in the coming months.

Over the next five years, the patient-led academy will develop educational material, training courses and a public Internet library to educate patient representatives and the lay public about all processes involved in medicines development. Topics will include personalised and predictive medicine, design and conduct of clinical trials, drug safety and risk/benefit assessment, pharmaco-economics as well as patient involvement in drug development. EUPATI will provide educational material in 7 European languages targeting 12 European countries. In this special satellite session during the DIA EuroMeeting, EUPATI partners will present their work plan and engage in discussions with the audience.

Please note that this 1st EUPATImeeting will be an “open-door” session for all DIA EuroMeeting attendees as well as organisations based in Denmark.

The meeting will be held at:

Hotel Bella Sky Comwell (adjacent to the Bella Conference Center)

Center Boulevard 5
2300 København S
Denmark

Location — see Google Maps here

If you have further questions about the meeting, please contact the EUPATI Secretariat:

Jan Geissler, EUPATI Director
jan@patientsacademy.eu
Tel. +49 (89) 66086968

All articles since launch now appear, and all future articles will also benefit from indexing.

ecancermedicalscience is the first gold open access peer-reviewed comprehensive cancer journal on PubMed, with no author or submission fees. PubMed is an electronic archive of journal articles, offering free access to its contents. To be included, journals must qualify on two levels: On the scientific and editorial quality of the content, and on the technical quality of the digital files.

It’s the place to start searching for information in the biomedical journal literature; a bibliographic database made up of the citations and abstracts of millions of articles from almost 5,000 journals.

Founding Editor Prof Umberto Veronesi commented: “I am very proud that our IEO journal has been accepted by PubMed. ecancermedicalscience was designed to be different because to be effective globally it had to be free.

We are delighted to have over 40,000 unique visitors coming to the journal each month from 190 countries.

Cancer is a problem in developing as well as developed countries so ecancermedicalscience meets the needs of all oncologists irrespective of wealth.”

ecancermedicalscience is already fully-indexed in other leading databases, including Embase, Scopus, EBSCO and Google Scholar, so any article published will be highly accessible to other researchers in the field. Authors retain the copyright of their articles so are free to distribute them as they wish.

In conjunction with National Heart Month, The British Heart Foundation have launched a new advertising campaign to teach people about the importance of hands-only CPR. According to The British Heart Foundation, 30,000 people have a cardiac arrest outside of hospital every year. But knowing how to administer cardiopulmonary recuscitation (CPR) may increase a person’s chances of survival and avoid damage caused by lack of oxygen to the brain. The British Heart Foundation’s ‘Hands-Only CPR’ campaign uses tough guy Vinnie Jones in their latest advert to demonstrate that “it’s not as hard as it looks”.

The new video, which has gained almost 1.5 million YouTube views since it was uploaded 4 weeks ago shows how hard and fast hands-only CPR to the Beat of ‘Stayin’ Alive’ by the Bee Gees can help the lives of people who have had a cardiac arrest. The choice of music isn’t just for entertainment. Heart experts have widely recommended rescuers compress a victim’s chest to the beat of that ’70s song because it moves at an ideal 103 beats per minute, or about twice a second.

As well as being entertaining, this is an informative and potentially life-saving video. As Vinnie Jones says: ‘There are times in life when being tough comes in handy.’  Let’s hope the video achieves its aim in urging more people to carry out CPR in a medical emergency.

See the video below, and shop your support on Twitter with the hastag #hardandfast.

The iCMLf Virtual Educational Programme 2011 is published online and also available on USB sticks which was distributed at their ASH launch event in December in San Diego. This event will see attendance by haematologist from countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Indonesia, India, Brazil, Azerbaijan, South Africa, Russia, Morocco, Peru, Venezuela – just to name a few.

The development of the Virtual Education in multiple languages and on one platform that can be published on web and USB will ensure that the tool will help to spread best practice and improve outcomes in these countries for patients with CML.

Contact: Stephen Dunn

There was a time when clinical trial results were disseminated mainly through peer-reviewed journals that appeared in your mailbox. Computers and prompt reporting from medical conferences changed that, and same-day postings on medical websites brought “breaking news” a step closer. But the evolution has continued, and today the boom in social media—especially Twitter—has led to real-time data delivery straight from the conference hall to mobile devices anywhere in the world.

You can read the full article in the December edition of the ASCOPost here.

If you are interested in more detail, you can read all the buzz from this year’s European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress (#EMCC2011) in our comprehensive executive briefing in partnership with Pharmaphorum (@pharmaphorum) here.  (This is a paid for report).

Contact Stephen Dunn if you would like to find out more about the use of social media at conferences and events to support your communications.

Brandcast Health, one of Europe’s leading digital healthcare agencies, has moved into new premises to accommodate continuing growth of the business.

Having quickly outgrown its old office space in New Cavendish Street, Brandcast Health has settled into the new offices which accommodate the company’s currently 15-strong team. The new offices have been designed to meet the requirements of Brandcast, including a reception area, open plan office space, two meeting rooms, three new edit suites with fully equipped in-house graphic work stations and a staff breakout area.

On relocating offices, the Director of Healthcare, Stephen Dunn, said: “After our most successful year in 2011, we welcome the move to the spacious new office. With existing business continuing to expand and new client onboard for 2012 including BMS, Hospital Corporation of America and Biocompatibles, the move fits well with expansion plans for Brandcast Health. These new offices clearly show that Brandcast is moving from strength to strength and we look forward to welcoming new members to our team in early next year.”

Brandcast’s Managing Director, Charlie Grieve, added:  “This is a really exciting time for Brandcast and our healthcare division. Although the market remains challenging for many businesses; digital and social media, video over the web, mobile and online marketing are in high demand. This modern and efficient workspace will allow for continued business growth and meet the specific needs of our expanding team and facilities.”

For further information, please contact:

Stephen Dunn

On the 14th November 2011, Charlie took off for the plains of South Africa to visit the Integrated HIV and TB programme set up by the Red Cross in KwaZulu Natal. Accompanied by representatives from The Wellington Appeal and his handy Flip Video camcorder, Charlie spent time with Red Cross volunteers on their daily home visits to see how they provide care, treatment and support to clients living with HIV. As well as visiting Income Generation Activities that had been set up by the Red Cross to reduce malnutrition and encourage entrepreneurial farming, Charlie visited a Red Cross Kids Club, where volunteers educate children about HIV and AIDS, provide access to medical care, and counselling sessions to help orphans cope better with the loss of their parents.

To find out more about The Wellington Appeal please visit their website here.

December 1st is World Aids Day - you can find out more about the Act Aware camapaign here.

Published by Victoria.

Since 2004, The Movember Foundation charity has been running Movember events to raise awareness and vital funds for men’s health issues such as prostate cancer. The health problem is a growing one, as the incidence of testicular cancer has doubled in Britain since the mid-70s and over 2000 men in the UK are now diagnosed every year. Like many other cancers, early detection and treatment are key to survival which means that campaigns such as this are essential to keep men vigilant.

A new video, written and directed by Mark Pallis to coincide with the end of Movember, encourages men not to be embarrassed but to regularly check themselves and to talk about it. The funny 60 second viral video is helping to spread the important message as people are sharing it on social platforms and leaving their comments.

‘Move your balls’, reads the strap line, and ‘help beat testicular cancer’.

Read all the buzz from this year’s European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress (EMCC) in this comprehensive executive briefing, including:

• Expert commentary from Sally Church (renowned oncology analyst), Prof Richard Sullivan (leading medical oncologist) and Jan Geissler (vocal cancer epatient).
• Transcripts of interviews with the authors from critical trial results (including BOLERO-2) and panel group discussions on metastatic breast cancer and immunotherapy.
• A review of the digital and social media coverage of the Congress, including analysis of the circa 3,500 Tweets sent over the course of the meeting.

Why buy this report?

• Learn about key clinical updates from EMCC across various tumour types, including expert first-hand discussion from medical oncologists.
• Understand the changing stakeholder landscape in European oncology and how patient advocates and groups are becoming integral to decision making.
• Discover additional resources and media channels providing a wealth of information on EMCC critical to decision making in the oncology space.

The aim of Maddock’s survey, which was developed under the auspices of a FP7 European Commission funded Eurocancercoms project, was to gather data on the type of information patients wanted and where they went to find it. The internet was considered the third most trusted source for information, behind doctors or health professionals printed material. It is clear that oncology patients are consistently turning to the internet to learn more about their prognosis and treatment options and also for emotional support.

With a seemingly endless supply of websites providing some sort of information about cancer, Maddock and colleagues tried to figure out what led a patient to a particular website by focussing the survey on the type of information requested and the factors that influenced a person’s web surfing. Although the overall conclusions of the survey were that the type and amount of detail sought varied significantly from one patient to the next, there were issues that were consistently raised.

Many people commented on the number of sites available and the problems associated with knowing where to look and what to trust. In an attempt to better locate trustworthy sites, a number of respondents suggested that knowledge of accredited sites or those recommended by doctors or reputable organisations would be beneficial . The presentation of information in a friendly easy to understand format was also important. A number of responders also commented that a site should offer clear basic information but have more detail for those who were interested in learning more. Over a quarter of responders expressed an interest in support groups or in finding a site with advice and support.

After processing all of the information learned from the survey, Maddock and colleagues suggested a ‘Stepped Approach to Information Delivery’. The first step should offer a simple explanation addressing the patient’s question. The second step would offer the patient a more detailed explanation, possibly including clips or diagrams, and finally the third step would be a comprehensive source of information with links to some of the most recent/relevant information (journal articles/reports…). They also commented on the role social media can play in providing psychological support and as a resource where patients can share their experiences. Another important issue raised by the study focused on the trustworthiness of information found on the internet. While over half of the respondents claimed to trust the information they found, a common request was that doctors review and recommend websites.

Maddock concluded the report by mentioning the development of ecancerHub, which is aimed at addressing many of the needs mentioned in the survey. The website was developed with help from experts across all areas of oncology and thus fulfils the need for a reputable site. Also, ecancerHub has a strong social media element, allowing participants to share information and engage in discussions. While this website is still in its infancy, it was designed to be a comprehensive site including both up-to-date expert information and access to patient discussions.

Pof Richard Sullivan presenting ecancerHub at the recent European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress.

Overall, results from this European survey highlighted the role the internet plays in disseminating information to cancer patients and the need to create a trustworthy source for patients to interact with others and learn about their treatment.

Brandcast Health was a lead technology partner in the Eurocancercomms project and scoped, designed and built ecancerHub.

Reference: C. Maddock, K. Ahmad, I. Lewis, R. Sullivan; Online Information Needs of Cancer Patients and their Organisations.

Several interesting research developments in immunotherapy for cancer treatment were discussed at this year’s European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress, (EMCC 2011) formerly known as the joint Congress of the European Cancer Organization and the European Society for Medical Oncology (ECCO-ESMO), in Stockholm.

The past 20 years of laboratory work has improved knowledge on the interaction of malignant tumours and the immune system. This has resulted in better strategies to utilise the immune system in the treatment of cancer. The development of novel immunotherapies has particularly benefited melanoma patients but has the potential to significantly impact the survival of patients with other tumour histotypes such as lung, prostate and kidney cancers.

The treatment of cancer by immunotherapy aims to maintain the immune response against the tumour cells by the manipulation of signalling pathways involved with T cell proliferation.

Previous agents, such as interleukin-2 and interferon, could soon be superseded by novel immunomodulating agents.

New data from the first clinical trial in nearly 40 years to demonstrate a significant improvement in overall and prolonged survival in the first-line treatment of advanced melanoma has highlighted the superiority of a new monoclonal antibody that inhibits the cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA-4). The Phase III clinical trial revealed that treatment with ipilimumab (Yervoy) in combination with dacarbazine resulted in a 28% survival benefit compared to dacarbazine alone (median overall survival [OS] 11.2 months vs 9.1 months, hazard ratio [HR] 0.716, p=0.0009).

Treatment with the anti-programmed death (PD)-1 human monoclonal antibody (similar to CTLA-4), which is a negatively regulating molecule expressed on the surface of activated T cells, has resulted in tumour regression without significant toxicities in melanoma patients in a Phase I study. It is viewed as an interesting and promising approach, as with ipilimumab, for use in combination therapy for melanoma.

Combination of immunomodulation agents, both with each other and with traditional chemotherapy, is a key consideration in the management of many advanced cancer patients. However, understanding the mechanisms behind these treatments and how they may complement each other is crucial.

“There is the potential to combine CTLA-4-based immune therapy with targeted therapies such as inhibitors of the mutated BRAF protein – however, such strategies should be approached with caution.”

Melanoma metastasizes frequently to the brain, and brain metastases generally drive the prognosis of melanoma patients. Temozolomide and fotemustine are preferentially used in melanoma patients with brain metastases in the United States and in Europe, respectively, with modest clinical activity. However, the results obtained with either agent are still limited, and efforts are needed to improve the outcome of these patients who are generally excluded from clinical trials. The Phase II Italian study (NIBIT-M1 trial) combining ipilimumab and fotemustine in patients with metastatic melanoma who had brain metastasis has shown promising results. If the effectiveness of this new approach is confirmed, this could offer an exciting evolution on how to manage brain metastases in patients with melanoma.

Targeted novel immunomodulating agents, while still in the early development phase, appear to be making headway in using the body’s immune system to battle various cancers and hold the potential to improve patient outcomes in the near future.

Stephen Dunn