Good Privacy Practices
Pharmaceutical marketers need to implement good -- or better, no, Best! -- privacy practices not only to comply with federal and state laws, but also to establish a trusting relationship with their clients -- physicians, patients, and consumers. “If pharma companies are going to use private information, they need to gather it in a way that’s going to help build a long-term, trusted relationship with the patient,” says John Mack, president of VirSci Corp. (Newtown, PA), a marketing consultant, who is also editor of Pharma Marketing News and the Pharma Marketing blog. “We’ve all seen incursions into privacy occurring at a scale never before seen. As consumers become more wary about privacy abuses, they tend to be less willing to share sensitive information, especially when the request seems excessive or intrusive.”
JOHN MACK, VIRSCI (See "The Battle Over Patient Privacy Heats Up," Suzanne Shelley, Pharmaceutical Commerce, 2008-12-24)
- Information and news about privacy issues impacting pharmaceutical marketing
- Privacy benchmarking and assessment services
- Privacy policy review and development
- Customized standard operating policies & procedures (SOPs) that comply with privacy best practices
- Gap analysis of SOPs to determine changes necessary to comply with privacy policies, state and federal laws, and pharmaceutical company requirements
- Help in answering self-assessment questionnaires from pharma companies
- Privacy workshops and training for executives, sales reps, agency personnel
- HIPAA privacy consulting
- Web site privacy certification (eg, TRUSTe) preparation, help with filling out forms, etc.