Free guide to HIPAA compliance
To assist health care providers in complying with the marketing portion of the Health Insurance Portability and AccountabilityAct,s (HIPAA) Privacy Rule, Customer Potential Management ,(CPM) Marketing Group, Inc., Middleton, Wis., has developed a guide to HIPAA and health care communications.
While HIPAA affects almost every aspect of a hospital, health plan or other health care entity’s operation, the marketing section has drawn comments, questions and complaints and was amended by the Bush administration last August. Despite the time to prepare, many organizations are still unclear about marketing definition exclusions and just what is permitted under the rule when it comes to communicating with patients.
Titled, "A Practical Guide to HIPAA and Healthcare Communications," the paper explains the marketing definition, exclusions, and provides examples of activities that require and do not require prior patient authorization before protected health information can be used for communication purposes.
Study follows prescription process
SureScripts, Alexandria, Va., has launched the Prescription Process Validation (PPV) program, which will study the roles, function and workflow of physicians, pharmacists and their respective staffs. The study, which began in May, will also examine key drivers of electronic prescribing adoption and the role that formulary management and drug utilization review play in the prescribing process. Preliminary results will be reported during the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) Pharmacy & Technology Conference in August.
Web site satisfaction tool from comScore
ComScore Networks Inc., Reston, Va., and ForeSee Results, Ann Arbor, Mich., have partnered to deliver a competitive intelligence capability for measuring customer satisfaction across competitive Web sites. The new tool combines the customer satisfaction methodology of ForeSee Results with the survey and continuous-measurement technology developed by comScore. Using the methodology of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) used at the University of Michigan, ForeSee Results has developed a model that quantifies the elements that drive online customer satisfaction with links to future buyer behavior and the financial performance of a brand. ComScore and Foresee Results’ combined offering enablesclients to extend the reach of the ForeSee Results methodology beyond the view of each client’s own Web site and to create benchmarks among competitive Web sites on a site-specific basis.
New-product testing program from Directions Research
Directions Research, Inc., Cincinnati, has launched a proprietary new-product testing program called Navigator, which provides facts derived from an objective database to improve designs, interpretation and insight. Navigator is part of a partnership between Directions and the University of Georgia’s Masters in Market Research program to determine methods to "bridge" the results of more than 3,800 product tests into a coherent, validated body of knowledge. Navigator’s product testing database is designed to guide design questions and enhance product test results by providing a frame of reference derived from past experiences. This comparative data puts results into perspective and provides a context to determine the most sensitive and efficient testing process.
Navigator helps address considerations such as: the effects of branded vs. blind testing; methodologies to break ties; category effects on product ratings; issues of scale and measurement sensitivity; and reference points for blind product tests.
Research drives pharma success
Early market research investment, starting as early as the preclinical stage, drives long-term market preparation and competitiveness, according to a new study available from pharmaceutical intelligence firm Cutting Edge Information, Durham, N.C.
The industry average for market research budgets supporting a developing product hovers near $7.1 million, and top-spending organizations dedicate more than $26 million to their market research initiatives. Pre-launch spending, however, typically represents only 28 percent of overall market research investment. The study finds a sizable opportunity for pharmaceutical companies to invest more in earlystage market research to drive R&D and marketing - years before a product
hits the market.
"Pre-Launch Pharmaceutical Market Research: Decision Support for New Product Development," available at www.pharmamarketresearch.com, contains more than 250 metrics and details how companies allocate resources, develop strategy and conduct effective market research activities. The report contains market research budgets, staffing, strategies and tactics from 17 pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Aventis.
Data protection software from KOM Networks
Ottawa, Ontario software firm KOM Networks has released version 3.0 of its ShieldWorx data protection software. ShieldWorx does not require any integration efforts on the part of the user to allow applications to take advantage of its data protection capabilities instantly and with no impact upon performance or change in appearance or operations. ShieldWorx converts any online storage resource of any file server into an online archive without impacting existing data. Its benefits enhance management of content, records and documents, e-mail archiving and digital asset management applications. ShieldWorx does not impact the administrator’s ability to use business-critical tools such as encryption and compression. It also does not affect performance.
SPSS debuts Predictive Web Analytics
Chicago-based SPSS Inc. is now offering Predictive Web Analytics, a solution that helps organizations transform their Web data into customer intelligence. Predictive Web Analytics solution integrates the company’s new NetGenesis 6.0 Web analytics platform with the predictive modeling capabilities of its Clementine 7.0 data mining workbench.
Predictive Web Analytics provides four analytical capabilities: segmentation of visitors based on their behavior, detection of content and product affinities, automatic identification of the most significant paths taken through a Web site, and prediction of visitors’ propensity to purchase, to view particular content or to chum. By providing historical and predictive Web mettics, Predictive Web Analytics identifies opportunities that increase sales and improve customer satisfaction, enabling companies to quantify the return on investment of Web initiatives.
Service copytests multicultural ads
Miami research firm Insights Marketing Group, Inc. has launched Multicultural Diagnostic Research, a new copytesting service geared toward multicultural ads and audiences through an exclusive licensing ag,reement with Diagnostic Research International (DRI).
The new multicultural copytesting service provides insights into the performance of multicultural advertising in a culturally-sensitive interviewing environment using a proprietary cultural sensitivity assessment. IMG’s service will focus on African-American and Hispanic TV, radio and print advertising.
Multicultural Diagnostic Research provides evaluative information for advertising decisions as well as indepth diagnostics to target areas for revisions and/or refinements for ad optimization.
Based upon DRI’s methodology the new multicultural copytesting service provides insights into the performance ofmulticultural advertising by adding a culturally-sensitive interviewing environment, ethnic group-calibrated norms, and a proprietary cultural sensitivity assessment.
Free profile of Hispanic radio listeners from Arbitron
New York-based Arbitron has released the 2003 edition of "Hispanic Radio Today: How America Listens to Radio," its annual update about Hispanic listeners in the U.S. and the formats they prefer. For the first time, the study combines Scarborough consumer data with Arbitron audience data to develop a profile of Hispanic listeners across America.
With Scarborough USA+ information on the purchasing plans and leisure activities for each of the eight most popular radio formats (Spanish-language and English-language) among Hispanic listeners, the national study illustrates radio’s ability to reach the fast-growing Hispanic consumer market. The number of Hispanics living in the U.S. now accounts for more than 13 percent of the population in Arbitron Metros. Accordingly, more people than ever are listening to Spanish-language radio, and the number of Spanish-language radio stations has increased by more than 100 in the past four years, reaching 664 in 2002.
Mexican Regional is by far the favorite Spanish-language format of Hispanics in the U.S. Spanish Contemporary comes in second, followed by Spanish Tropical as a distant third. Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR) is the favorite English-language format among Hispanic Americans. The study can be downloaded at www.arbitron.com/downloads/hispanicradiotoday03.pdf.
New investor relations research tool
BRANDimension, a research tool for investor relations that incorporates advertising-derived account planning methodologies, has been introduced by $2 Communications LLC, a New York-based business and communications strategy consulting firm. BRANDimension looks at constituencies beyond the financial community, including "C-Suite" executives at customers, prospects and peers as well as the client’s own key employees. This audience perspective, combined with S2’s proprietary account planning techniques, is designed to give investor relations officers meaningful and useful insights.
BRANDimension enables investor relations officers to: develop positioning and messages that affect investment behavior; establish metrics that more accurately evaluate the effectiveness of the IR program; identify promising directions for investor relations strategy; ensure consistent messaging and facilitate integration across communications disciplines.
Collect data via wireless Web and SMS
Dallas-based Mobile Memoir has developed software for conducting market research using the wireless Web and SMS (short messaging service) as data collection tools in North America. The text-based wireless survey and diary solution exchanges information using mobile phones and connected PDAs. Mobile Memoir’s Web-based software enables a market researcher to design a survey, upload it for availability by mobile phones in any part of the world, and receive and analyze results in real time. It offers the most popular features and functions available in Internet survey solutions, including support for all question types, branching, piping, respondent tracking, messaging with respondents (via mobile phone or the Web), and availability of instantaneous downloadable reports.
A primary application for Mobile Memoir is the replacement of traditional diary-keeping methods with data entry on a mobile phone, a device that is always with the consumer. Other applications include mystery shopping, consumption studies, clinical trials in which patients need to report side effects of medication in a timely fashion, and immediate ad hoc surveys and opinion polls conducted in nontraditional settings.
Craft kid media campaigns with MultiMedia Mentor Junior
Menlo Park, Calif.-based Knowledge Networks/SRI has launched MultiMedia Mentor Junior, a media research tool designed to help advertisers, agencies, and content providers fred the best ways to combine media in campaigns targeting kids.
As the exclusive ratings provider for Radio Disney, the firm developed techniques and questionnaires designed to encourage kid cooperation and alleviate parental concerns. The MultiMedia Mentor Junior pilot - sponsored by Radio Disney and Starcom Worldwide - is based on some 750 firsthand interviews with children aged six to 11. The result is a resource containing insights about: how to reach kids who consume more sodas or go to more movies; which media and!or dayparts may be undervalued in terms of their child audiences; and whether specific non-media activities might offer valuable tie-ins with media campaigns.
Knowledge Networks analysis reveals insights that can boost the efficiency of kid-focused media campaigns. For example: boys’ media use is heavily concentrated in TV, while girls generally divide their time more evenly among the five media studied; children with cable-connected TV sets in their rooms spend an additional 1.25 hours with television every day, compared to kids with no in-room sets; girls nine to 11 are the most prolific media multitaskers, combining TV and Interact, TV and radio, and other vehicles more often than boys or younger girls; boys six to 11 who spend 90 minutes or more a day playing videogames also watch an extra 25 minutes of TV daily; and girls nine to 11 who watch relatively little television spend nearly half (46 percent) of their media time with magazines and the Interact.
MultiMedia Mentor Junior combines twice-yearly surveys in which kids six to 11 report on their exposure to five key media - TV, radio, Interact, magazine and newspapers, and analytical software that allows users to develop media allocation strategies focusing on specific demographic groups, product users and other audiences.
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Arlington, Texas-based Decision Analyst, Inc. has launched the Medical Advisory Board, adding to its line of specialty online panels. The Board will draw its membership from all areas of the health care industry and all types of medical practice. Members will be given the opportunity to participate in a range of online opinion surveys and exchange their specialized knowledge with fellow members in online discussion sessions.
InterClipper has launched ViC CD (formerly VideoMarker), which allows the capture of qualitative research projects on CD instead of tape. With three levels of service - ViC Viewer, ViC Clipper and ViC Marker- ViC CD is available in 80 facilities nationwide. InterClipper also offers a videotape-to-CD transfer service.
Western Wats, Provo, Utah, has opened a 150-station data collection facility in Lethbridge, Alberta. The firm has contracted with SPSS MR to enable 50 stations to run Quancept 7.8 using a QTS dialer.
San Antonio-Texas based GlobalSCAPE is now offering the Web Survey questionnaire development product. Web Survey for Windows includes everything needed to create questionnaires and analyze their results. Users can develop presentations with the information they have acquired, which can be saved in common formats such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and HTML.
"Black Americans: A Statistical Source Book 2003" and "Hispanic Americans: A Statistical Source Book 2003" are available from Information Publications, Palo Alto, Calif. Each book contains sections on social and economic characteristics; demographics; education; crime and corrections; vital statistics and health; and earnings, income, poverty and wealth.
ICT Research Services, the marketing research business unit of ICT Group, Inc., has opened a new call center in Woodstock, Ontario. The center will house 150-170 stations, each with CATI and predictive dialing.
Tenafly, N.J.-based research firm Invoke Solutions, Inc. is now offering Dynamic Survey 2.5, a marketing research solution that enables qualitative and quantitative techniques to be combined in a live Web session with a large national sample. The latest version of the solution provides dashboard improvements, technology enhancements and increased flexibility.
Online information source MarketResearch.com has launched Version 3.0 of its site, with enhancements designed to make locating relevant business intelligence easier. The new site, based on client feedback and testing, has been redesigned with more intuitive navigation, additional browse features and new search functionality.
MapInfo Corporation, Troy, N.Y., has enhanced its AnySite locationbased software tool to help users make informed decisions regarding site location, target marketing and product merchandising in both the U.S. and Canada. The mapping and reporting capabilities allow companies to connect to, retrieve and report both MapInfo data and proprietary customerdatabases in order to analyze trade area data. New enhancements to MapInfo AnySite include predictive analytic modules and demographic updates including Census 2000.
The Radio Advertising Effectiveness Lab (RAEL) is now offering a second white paper, "The Multiplier Effect - Estimating The Benefit of Adding Radio," on its Web site at www.radioadlab.org/whitepapers.htm as part of a series of white papers and advertiser case studies. RAEL, an independent organization established in 2001 and funded by radio industry companies, works to measure radio’s effectiveness and to increase advertiser and agency confidence in radio.
Dallas research firm Parks Associates is offering a free white paper on U.S. mobile phone users. Titled "Disconnected: Consumers and the Mobile Phone Industry," it can be downloaded from www.parksassociates.com.
Nielsen//NetRatings is now offering AdRelevance 4.0, featuring improvements designed to equip advertising and media buying and selling communities with new tracking tools to measure and research online advertising campaigns. New features include cross-media spending analysis, keyword search measurement, additional rich media and ad format tracking, and precision probing for registered areas and sub-sites. For more information visit www.netratings.com.
New York-based research firm Ziment announced that its online panel of patients suffering from a wide range of chronic illnesses now exceeds 200,000 members.