Get h-APP-ening
How smartphone apps can improve your health and wellness There is no doubt smartphones have changed the flow of communication. But the question is, how are hand held devices allowing us to be proactive and educated about our own health? Not only are consumers being spoilt for choice by the surplus of apps available, the…
Newcastle the starting point for stronger epilepsy support
Newcastle is among the nation’s first communities to benefit from DisabilityCare Australia, the national disability insurance scheme, kicking off with an epilepsy forum today. Novocastrians living with disabilities and epilepsy, their families and disability organisations will have the opportunity to participate in the ‘Epilepsy Know Me, Support Me’ program to be canvassed at Noah’s on…
Guild tackles PBS price battle head-on
With the country in the midst of (or trying to avoid) election fever, it feels as though Australians are being asked to throw their support behind one party or another. But despite the promises being made by the country’s political parties, big and small, there’s another battle for consumer support taking place in Australian pharmacies.…
Getting thrown into the deep end, hoping to swim!
Getting thrown into the deep end, hoping to swim! My first two weeks at VIVA! have shown me some of the specialist skills required to operate in health + wellness public relations. I was thrown into the deep end as my previous communications internships were in consumer-driven environments. By the end of my first day…
GLOBALHealthPR boosts Twitter presence
GLOBALHealthPR partners love to actively participate, and contribute to, social media chatter. So, it’s no surprise that we have come together to run a dedicated @GLOBALHealthPR Twitter page. GHPR’s global presence We are now tweeting daily on relevant pharmaceutical, healthcare and science developments. Feel free to take a moment to follow the @GLOBALHealthPR…
Mummy blogs best
Forget about journalists, it’s bloggers that PR companies need to cultivate nowadays. As mentioned in past VIVA! blogs, journalists – especially health journalists – as we know them are a dying breed with the shrinking newsroom. This has helped pave the way for the rise of the ‘blogger’. Bloggers are not a particularly new phenomenon. The…
Will health get a guernsey in the 2013 election?
Health will likely be buried amid the hot button 2013 federal election topics of asylum seekers, carbon tax and the economy, but that has not stopped our peak health and medical bodies stating their arguments for how health should be managed under any incoming government. Issues ranging from PBS drug listings to chronic disease care,…
Telling your health story with Instagram
When I first heard the rumblings that yet another mobile social media platform had launched into the market, I was somewhat sceptical. But I have learnt a lot more about Instagram since. I now know that it boasts around 100 million users and after some research, have found that the free, instant photo-sharing app (now…
PR hits its straps in a changed science and health news environment
The general contraction of media and journalism has led to the loss of hundreds, if not thousands of journalists and it’s a continuing trend. This haemorrhaging of writers worldwide has been particularly brutal in science and health journalism. Conversely there is now more pressure for journalists to create more ‘news’ content than ever. So as…
Healthcare providers and patients come together online
Following on from last week’s blog about good tweeting, VIVA! Communications thought we’d continue the discussion about healthcare and social media. We stumbled on an article from online publication, thesocialmediahat.com in which they cited some research undertaken by editors at a US health administration education institution into healthcare and social media. What they found was…