A Data Trove Now Guides Drug Company Pitches

The information allows drug makers to know which drugs a doctor is prescribing and how that compares to a colleague across town. They know whether patients are filling their prescriptions — and refilling them on time. They know details of patients’ medical conditions and lab tests, and sometimes even their age, income and ethnic backgrounds.

The result, said one marketing consultant, is what would happen if Arthur Miller’s Willy Loman met up with the data whizzes of Michael Lewis’s “Moneyball.” “There’s a group of geeks, if you will, who are running the numbers and helping the sales guys be much more efficient,” said Chris Wright, managing director of ZS Associates, which conducts such analyses for pharmaceutical companies.

Drug makers say they are putting the information to good use, by helping a doctor improve the chances that their patients take their medications as prescribed, or making sure they are prescribing the right drug to the right patients.

Some doctors, however, expressed discomfort with the idea of sensitive data being used to sell drugs, even though federal law requires that any personally identifiable information be removed. “I think the doctors tend not to be aware of the depths to which they are being analyzed and studied by people trying to sell them drugs and other medical products,” said Dr. Jerry Avorn, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a pioneer of programs for doctors aimed at counteracting the marketing efforts of drug makers. “Almost by definition, a lot of this stuff happens under the radar — there may be a sales pitch, but the doctor may not know that sales pitch is being informed by their own prescribing patterns.”

The research firm IMS Health has tracked information about which drugs doctors prescribe since the 1990s, and over the last decade, the list of available information has expanded to include insurance claims data, which yields a trove of intelligence about patients’ medical diagnoses and insurance coverage. Additional details about patients, including income, education and ethnicity, can also be available.

One company, SDI Health, promises to provide clients with “actionable analysis” by tracking people — on an anonymous basis — as they move through the “patient experience.” That includes, according to their Web site, filling prescriptions at a pharmacy, visiting a doctor, being admitted to the hospital and undergoing lab tests.

“Through our unique and proprietary patient-linking technology, we connect all aspects of a patient’s behavior,” the company’s Web site states. IMS Health acquired SDI in 2011.

“The sales representative theoretically has the ability to understand not only the doctor’s behavior, and which other physicians are key opinion leaders that the doctor listens to, but also the behavior of that doctor’s patients,” said Jerry Maynor, the director of marketing for North America at Cegedim Strategic Data, one of the companies that performs data analyses.

Some said that tracking physicians’ behavior was no different from techniques other industries use to sell products, including following a consumer’s Internet activity. But David Orentlicher, a law professor at Indiana University who writes on medical ethics issues, said the pharmaceutical companies’ use of data has become more invasive. “A lot of the information comes out of the doctor-patient encounter,” he said.

Privacy advocates also pointed to research showing that people in anonymous databases can sometimes be re-identified. “It just seems like it skirts the edge of the laws that do exist,” said Adriane Fugh-Berman, an associate professor at Georgetown University Medical Center who is a critic of pharmaceutical marketing tactics.

Gadgetwise Blog: Tip of the Week: Free Microsoft Office Quick-Start Guides

Software updates often bring changes like new menus, commands and keyboard shortcuts to Microsoft Office programs — and these new elements can temporarily slow down even the most experienced users of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. To help its customers get up to speed with the latest release, Microsoft has colorful “quick start” guides for all the programs in the Office suite available at its site.

Along with information for Word 2013, Excel 2013, PowerPoint 2013 and Outlook 2013, the page also includes 2013 quick-start guides for less-common programs in the Office suite: Access, OneNote, Project, Publisher and Visio. Available in the PDF format and free to download and print, each guide runs about five to nine pages depending on the program and covers the changes made to the software from the previous edition. Tips for using the program are included, as is compatibility advice for working with people who do not have Office 2013.

App Smart: Guides to Legoland, Disney, Madame Tussauds and More - App Smart

In the digital era, your smartphone is the solution to theme park woes. If you are a habitual theme-parkgoer and based in the United States or Britain, you will probably love the Thrill Seeker app for iOS ($4.99). It offers detailed information on numerous parks in Florida, including Adventure Island in Tampa and Walt Disney World and Wet ’n Wild in Orlando, as well as major British parks.

The app is simple and list-based. You start by picking a theme park; some of the bigger parks have subsections showing their different services. Tapping one of these takes you to a list of the park’s features and services, like roller coasters, sideshow stalls and restrooms. To make it easier to navigate, you can filter this list so you see, for example, only rides or bathrooms. Each feature has its own page with a brief description, and sometimes a photo to help you identify it. There are also written histories for some rides, which may help you while away the minutes in line.

Coaster fans will appreciate the detailed specifications, like height, speed and cost, given for some rides. There is even information about the engineers who built the rides. One section shows restrictions like those on rider height, and another offers some details, like whether the ride takes a photo of you or lacks disabled access. The app includes written directions and maps to help you get to your chosen ride or service, and you can use the “nearby” button to get a full list of what is close to your current position.

Thrill Seeker is a powerful app. For some parks, it even has alerts for long wait times at individual rides, and you can command your iPhone to tell you when the wait time drops.

The one criticism you could make of this app is that it is a little unexciting — too list-based to enthrall the younger members of your group.If you prefer a more visual and, perhaps, theme-parklike experience in an app, the numerous apps for Merlin Entertainments are all similar and fun. Merlin, the world’s second-largest theme park operator after Disney, contracted a small company to create the official apps for many of its parks, including Legoland in Florida and Germany, Alton Towers in Britain and various Madame Tussauds locations.

These apps are much more graphical than Thrill Seeker. Their home pages are filled with icons for sections that tell you about rides, park services, special events and offers, and local weather conditions. There are also some simple games, which should keep your children amused if you have to wait.

For navigation, the apps have satellite-style maps with pinned points of interest and cute, graphical maps from the theme parks’ own printed material. These are easier to use than paper copies because you can reveal the locations of destinations like cafes or stores at the push of a button. Some of the apps offer an augmented-reality view, which may help you identify the direction and distance to the rides or services you are looking for.

The apps are free and available on both iPhones and phones running the Android operating system (although the list of parks is more restricted on Android), and your children may find them more fun to use than the sober Thrill Seeker.

There are many more theme parks than are listed here, and more roller coasters than can fit in this column. If you are a coaster fan and simply want detailed information, check out the free Rides! app for the iPhone, which claims to have details on over 4,000 coasters around the world, including 32 in Africa. Organized by nation, the app provides many detailed specifications, including user-submitted photos, and can help you find information on rides in your vicinity.

The company behind Rides! also makes a roller-coaster diary app, CoasterCounter ($1.99). It includes the same information but also lets you log and rate every ride you take, and it connects to an online community where you can share your stats and photos.

Quick Call

The Weather Channel bestowed special attention on Nokia’s Lumia Windows phones this week with the newest version of its app, which will be available exclusively on Lumia phones for a while. The app has more languages and features, like personalized lifestyle-sensitive alerts and augmented reality. There is even a dash of social media: you can see what weather your friends are experiencing and chat with them. You can also submit your photos of the weather to appear in the augmented-reality section.

App Smart: Guides to Legoland, Disney, Madame Tussauds and More - App Smart

In the digital era, your smartphone is the solution to theme park woes. If you are a habitual theme-parkgoer and based in the United States or Britain, you will probably love the Thrill Seeker app for iOS ($4.99). It offers detailed information on numerous parks in Florida, including Adventure Island in Tampa and Walt Disney World and Wet ’n Wild in Orlando, as well as major British parks.

The app is simple and list-based. You start by picking a theme park; some of the bigger parks have subsections showing their different services. Tapping one of these takes you to a list of the park’s features and services, like roller coasters, sideshow stalls and restrooms. To make it easier to navigate, you can filter this list so you see, for example, only rides or bathrooms. Each feature has its own page with a brief description, and sometimes a photo to help you identify it. There are also written histories for some rides, which may help you while away the minutes in line.

Coaster fans will appreciate the detailed specifications, like height, speed and cost, given for some rides. There is even information about the engineers who built the rides. One section shows restrictions like those on rider height, and another offers some details, like whether the ride takes a photo of you or lacks disabled access. The app includes written directions and maps to help you get to your chosen ride or service, and you can use the “nearby” button to get a full list of what is close to your current position.

Thrill Seeker is a powerful app. For some parks, it even has alerts for long wait times at individual rides, and you can command your iPhone to tell you when the wait time drops.

The one criticism you could make of this app is that it is a little unexciting — too list-based to enthrall the younger members of your group.If you prefer a more visual and, perhaps, theme-parklike experience in an app, the numerous apps for Merlin Entertainments are all similar and fun. Merlin, the world’s second-largest theme park operator after Disney, contracted a small company to create the official apps for many of its parks, including Legoland in Florida and Germany, Alton Towers in Britain and various Madame Tussauds locations.

These apps are much more graphical than Thrill Seeker. Their home pages are filled with icons for sections that tell you about rides, park services, special events and offers, and local weather conditions. There are also some simple games, which should keep your children amused if you have to wait.

For navigation, the apps have satellite-style maps with pinned points of interest and cute, graphical maps from the theme parks’ own printed material. These are easier to use than paper copies because you can reveal the locations of destinations like cafes or stores at the push of a button. Some of the apps offer an augmented-reality view, which may help you identify the direction and distance to the rides or services you are looking for.

The apps are free and available on both iPhones and phones running the Android operating system (although the list of parks is more restricted on Android), and your children may find them more fun to use than the sober Thrill Seeker.

There are many more theme parks than are listed here, and more roller coasters than can fit in this column. If you are a coaster fan and simply want detailed information, check out the free Rides! app for the iPhone, which claims to have details on over 4,000 coasters around the world, including 32 in Africa. Organized by nation, the app provides many detailed specifications, including user-submitted photos, and can help you find information on rides in your vicinity.

The company behind Rides! also makes a roller-coaster diary app, CoasterCounter ($1.99). It includes the same information but also lets you log and rate every ride you take, and it connects to an online community where you can share your stats and photos.

Quick Call

The Weather Channel bestowed special attention on Nokia’s Lumia Windows phones this week with the newest version of its app, which will be available exclusively on Lumia phones for a while. The app has more languages and features, like personalized lifestyle-sensitive alerts and augmented reality. There is even a dash of social media: you can see what weather your friends are experiencing and chat with them. You can also submit your photos of the weather to appear in the augmented-reality section.