Harnessing Online Networks to Improve Patient Care
Many people share personal information on social media – including their experiences of using medicines. This is valuable data that can help us improve patient care.
Can social media help us hear patients?
Our pharmacovigilance centre of excellence collects publically available data from social media and filters out unrelated information and anything that would infringe patient privacy. The Centre’s analysis is helping us to understand the benefits of our products, alert us to unexpected adverse effects, and evaluate the misuse of drugs.
In a two-year period, we found approximately 22 million Twitter and Facebook posts discussing potential adverse events for 1,000 medicines. As well as highlighting adverse effects, this information has given us significant insight into the inappropriate use of drugs; for example, discovering that some patients are crushing and injecting medicines that are meant to be swallowed. Being aware of common misuse of treatments helps us to make decisions on appropriate labelling and further guidance.
Analysis of the ever-growing amount of social media data is likely to provide essential insights into ways we can develop better medicines and enhance patient care.
Read more: Can social media help us hear patients?
