IMS Health and Hootsuite Form Alliance to Help Life Sciences Companies Increase Engagement on Social Media Channels and Support Compliance

Integration Drives More Effective Social Interactions with Patients and Healthcare Providers

BARCELONA, Spain--()--IMS Health (NYSE:IMS) today announced the launch of the IMS Health AETracker application for Hootsuite — a first-of-its-kind offering that enables life sciences companies to drive compliance and engagement with patients and healthcare providers on social media channels. The new app is available on the Hootsuite App Directory and integrates AETracker — IMS Health’s advanced technology solution for identifying, tracking and reporting adverse events, product complaints and off-label usage in real time — with the Hootsuite platform, the most widely used solution for managing social media.

Every life sciences company has multiple forums and “touch points” where patients and healthcare providers share their experiences, ask questions and discuss possible side effects related to their medications. With only a narrow window in which to report adverse events to government regulators, it can be challenging for companies to continuously monitor the vast quantities of data flowing through these enterprise-sponsored accounts on Facebook, Twitter and other social channels. The IMS Health AETracker application for Hootsuite supports client efforts to stay in compliance in markets worldwide.

AETracker’s real-time risk detection and 24/7 IMS Health Social Command Center is accessible in the Hootsuite dashboard, which provides clear visualization of social media insights through an easy-to-use engagement console. The integration alleviates the compliance burden for life sciences companies — enabling their marketing employees and agencies to focus on meaningful, efficient engagement with patients and healthcare providers.

As part of IMS Health’s Nexxus™ Commercial Application Suite, AETracker is a best-in-class SaaS solution that uses patent-pending algorithms to detect possible adverse events in unstructured data across social media channels, mobile health applications and branded websites. Hootsuite’s highly intuitive dashboard empowers life sciences companies to consolidate multiple social channels into one comprehensive view — enabling efficient tracking and response to patients’ and healthcare providers’ comments, questions and requests.

“The integration of the IMS Health AETracker application with Hootsuite makes it easier than ever for our clients to realize the benefits of AETracker,” said Siva Nadarajah, general manager, social media, Technology Solutions, IMS Health. “With Hootsuite’s easy-to-use platform, users can achieve a higher level of social media engagement while also addressing the critical need to detect and report adverse events and other regulatory compliance risks in a timely way.”

IMS Health’s Social Command Center is staffed by certified healthcare professionals who evaluate potential threats and trigger reporting usually within an hour of detection by the solution. Additionally, the command center assists with product complaints and off-label risks that could appear in social media conversations.

“The IMS Health AETracker app will be a valuable addition to our ecosystem of best-of-breed partners. Hootsuite is seeing significant growth in both the Healthcare and Pharmaceutical industries, and effective, compliant patient engagement is crucial to healthcare providers. IMS Health's industry expertise, global reach and reputation are very complementary and we look forward to a long mutually beneficial relationship," said Cameron Burke, director of Solution Partners at Hootsuite.

The Nexxus Commercial Application Suite brings together the most complete and fully connected set of life sciences applications across the commercial continuum, from marketing campaign management and social media monitoring to customer engagement, sales operations and performance management.

Hootsuite is the most widely used platform for managing social media, with more than 12 million users including 800 of the Fortune 1000 companies. Hootsuite’s App Directory, the leading app market place for social media management, brings together more than 150 best-of-breed integrations and business applications.

IMS Health announced this integration from the eyeforpharma conference in Barcelona, Spain. For more information on the AETracker application for Hootsuite, visit the IMS Health exhibit area (#41–46).

About IMS Health

IMS Health is a leading global information and technology services company providing clients in the healthcare industry with end-to-end solutions to measure and improve their performance. Our 7,500 services experts connect configurable SaaS applications to 10+ petabytes of complex healthcare data in the IMS One™ cloud platform, delivering unique insights into diseases, treatments, costs and outcomes. The company’s 15,000 employees blend global consistency and local market knowledge across 100 countries to help clients run their operations more efficiently. Customers include pharmaceutical, consumer health and medical device manufacturers and distributors, providers, payers, government agencies, policymakers, researchers and the financial community.

As a global leader in protecting individual patient privacy, IMS Health uses anonymous healthcare data to deliver critical, real-world disease and treatment insights. These insights help biotech and pharmaceutical companies, medical researchers, government agencies, payers and other healthcare stakeholders to identify unmet treatment needs and understand the effectiveness and value of pharmaceutical products in improving overall health outcomes. Additional information is available at www.imshealth.com.

Contacts

IMS Health
Tor Constantino, +1 484-567-6732
Media Relations
tconstantino@us.imshealth.com

Contacts

IMS Health
Tor Constantino, +1 484-567-6732
Media Relations
tconstantino@us.imshealth.com