Patients Can Talk Back With Sidewiki

Sidewiki is a feature on Google's toolbar that allows anyone to comment on pages as they surf the web. As a social media tool, Sidewiki allows other surfers to read these comments.

What does this mean for medical sites?

It means that patients and physicans alike can leave comments on branded sites with no pharma control. Consumers can report adverse events. Physicians can have on-line on-site discussions of off label use.

It is not clear yet how the industry will handle the situation. Benjamin Curtis of PharmExec reports ways to block the Sidewiki service. However, he adds that Google can probably work around them. This is going to be an interesting subject to follow...





Gilad Karni