Apple plan to revolutionise mobile healthcare

Pharma Times | Kevin Grogan 

Apple has unveiled HealthKit, a platform to centralise data from different types of devices, like fitness trackers, heart rate and blood pressure monitors.

Launching iOS 8 for iPhones and iPads, which it describes as the biggest release since the launch of the App Store, Apple gave much prominence to HealthKit, which “gathers the information you choose from your various health apps and fitness devices, and provides you with a clear and current overview in one place”. The new operating system offers developers the ability for these apps “to communicate with each other”, the company said, and with  permission of the user, each app can use specific information from other apps “to provide a more comprehensive way to manage your health and fitness”.

How is UK pharma embracing e-learning?

 Pharmaceutical Field | Laura Scarlett

E-learning is gaining ground across the UK as a preferred method for training and ongoing performance support, but is it being embraced within the pharmaceutical sector? Information Transfer’s Laura Scarlett looks at trends within the industry and what it might mean for the delivery of training and information in the future.

Chances are, considering the intense regulation of the pharmaceutical industry, the precise nature of its products and the pace of research, you will regularly complete training and assessments on a variety of subjects.

Increasingly, in the UK and worldwide, organisations are using e-learning techniques and technologies to train and assess staff. By e-learning, I mean the use of any technology across the learning process, most obviously for delivery of content, but also encompassing tests and ongoing assessment, and management of learning content (so that it can, for instance, be easily updated). A recent survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found that 60% of organisations have increased their use of e-learning in the past two years and many expect this trend to continue.

“New technologies, increased connectivity, and growing computer literacy amongst the workforce have helped to drive the trend,” said Dr Rachel Meller, a partner at Information Transfer, one of the UK’s leading training and communication consultancies and specialists in pharmaceutical product training. Rachel and her team have been producing computer-based training and assessments for the pharmaceutical industry since the mid-1980s.

“Product and brand managers have a whole new set of tools at their disposal for supporting the product sales team, and we have certainly seen a steady rise in interest for e-learning training materials,” she added.

But, of course, access to new tools and an available new channel do not mean e-learning is necessarily appropriate. We asked a selection of learning and development managers and sales representatives about how they use e-learning, when it is (most) effective and what changes they anticipate within the industry.