Acurian, which provides patient recruitment and retention services for clinical research, is using social networking sites Facebook and MySpace to tap into the Web 2.0 territory. The company has developed an application for Facebook and MySpace called "Click it Forward," which allows members to raise money for one of 20 medical causes by inviting friends to use the application. Causes include breast cancer, depression and diabetes. Users are awarded points based on how many friends register for the application and Acurian donates to their cause of choice based on a ten tier pyramid of accumulated points.
Although Acurian says the contribution aspect is designed to encourage users to spread the word about the application, the company has committed to donating up to $50,000 per year to the causes, BIO-IT World reports. "Web 2.0 is driving real business opportunities in hundreds of industries, including healthcare," said Acurian's vice president of marketing Scott Connor. "We are leveraging the platform to help our customers gain access to new patients, and in turn we are giving back to causes that will benefit from new therapies brought about through clinical research."
Acurian spreads the word about clinical research and trials by allowing Click it Forward users the opportunity to register their health and contact information for future clinical trials. And once users install the application on their profile pages, Acurian markets information on clinical research and clinical trial opportunities through members' profiles.
"Social networking is an ideal environment for promoting clinical trial awareness and increasing Acurian's direct-to-patient recruitment capabilities," Connor said in a company release. "Facebook and MySpace together have nearly 200 million registered users, and we believe that Click it Forward plays well to these online audiences based on the application's healthcare and altruistic characteristics."
- read the Acurian release
- check out the BIO-IT World article for more