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Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry Magazine
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Originally Published May 2000

EDITOR'S PAGE

Have Pacemaker, Will Travel: Web Service Combines Information, Promotion

Moving certain product-support functions on-line disburdens physicians and benefits patients. Will it also provide device manufacturers with indirect but significant marketing benefits?

If someone asks you what brand of automobile, computer, basketball shoes, or portable phone you own, you're likely to know the answer. However, surveys conducted by the device industry have shown that only a very small percentage of those who receive, for example, a pacemaker or implantable defibrillator could name the company that manufactured the device. Although we're accustomed to claiming that we can't live without our cell phones, certain products are, literally, life sustaining—the ones we know nothing about.

In part, this is willful ignorance, and reflects how patients deal sensibly with stress. When one is about to have a gadget implanted in one's chest, concern tends to be focused on the judgement and competence of the physician—who, it is assumed, knows which parts to use. Once the device is in place and seems to be working, it's better to leave well enough alone. The need for any maintenance or adjustment is resolved by a phone call to the same doctor: if he or she didn't exactly make the thing, they at least know how to fiddle with it.

That the recipient of such complex technology as a pacemaker should be oblivious as to its origin is certainly frustrating to the manufacturer. By and large, makers of many advanced devices—who maintain extensive programs of tracking and ongoing follow-up—have yet to engage in the type of direct-to-consumer marketing that is all the rage among drug companies. In this context, one manufacturer's recent Web-based initiative—though not undertaken primarily as a marketing endeavor—shows how the Internet can be used to accomplish several objectives at once, including building brand awareness and other marketing goals.

Set up by Medtronic Inc. (Minneapolis, MN) and available at http://www.medtronic.com/traveling, the offering is the first Internet resource organized specifically to help people with implanted heart rhythm—management devices obtain the proper care while traveling. Patients who log on to the site will be able to access a list of more than 400 domestic clinics, as well as centers in 120 countries. All of the facilities are equipped with the company's Model 9790 programmer, which can connect with any Medtronic pacemaker or defibrillator via telemetry, assess the functioning of the device, and send signals enabling clinicians to modify its operation. The site also provides general travel advice for patients with implanted heart devices, and answers a range of frequently asked questions.

Establishment of the Web resource enables Medtronic to coordinate all of its product follow-up services—pacemaker and facility registration, specialty care-center listings—in one place, with updates instantly available. As use of the site grows, it is expected to save a good deal of time for cardiologists, who currently field calls and dispense information when their patients plan a trip or run into problems abroad. Stephen H. Mahle, president of Medtronic Cardiac Rhythm Management, terms the site "among the first of many ways in which Medtronic plans to connect physicians and patients and help empower them to use interconnectivity and optimize therapy."

Interconnectivity is also music to a marketer's ears. First of all, it means typing "medtronic" to interconnect. It would be virtually impossible for a customer of the company to visit the travel site and remain unaware as to which corporation was regularizing those heartbeats. Before getting to the map of the world to check our itinerary, we pass links to various Medtronic products and learn that the company makes "half of the devices being implanted today," that "you are never far away from optimal therapy with a Medtronic device," and that "better therapy for patients" is "a mission we share with you."

Sounds like the music is perfectly pitched.

Jon Katz
jon.katz@cancom.com