Healthy Skepticism Library item: 20081

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Magazine

Fleming K
MD loses drug ads but no more user-friendly
Medical Observer 2005 Aug 193

Full text:

Medical Director owner Health Communication Network (HCN) has bowed to pressure to remove select pop-ups ads from its newly released software, but changes may not make the product much more user-friendly.

The ads that appeared when GPs printed documents have been removed before the release of MD3 in a bid to improve clinical workflow.

Last month, Dr Edmund Bateman, managing director of Primary Health Care, which owns HCN, pledges to change advertising on MD3 to minimise interference with consultations but remain effective for advertisers.

Brisbane GP and health informatics consultant Dr Ian Cheong said the ads were annoying because they stayed on the screen for five seconds when a prescription or pathology result was printed and could not be closed.

“I can live more with the ads that take up extra screen space ‘unobtrusively’ while letting me do my work”, he said.

A GP who tested MD3 said he did not notice the ads were gone until it was pointed out and that improvement to his workflow was not significant.

However, he said MD3 was faster and had improved features.

La Trobe University public health lecturer Dr Ken Harvey said it was ironic the ads removed were those least likely to influence prescribing because GPs had already decided on a medication.

The changes come amid concerns that some ads that appear in other versions of Medical Director breach the Medicines Australia code of conduct.