Nielsen teams up with Wolters Kluwer

Chain Drug Review,  August 18, 2008  

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NEW YORK -- Nielsen Co. and Wolters Kluwer Health have partnered to form the Healthcare Consumer Informatics Alliance.

The Alliance provides healthcare-related manufacturers and media companies with a comprehensive understanding of consumer behaviors and attitudes to enable more effective and efficient product messages, sales and media planning.

As consumers are faced with increased responsibility for making their own health care decisions as well as a wider array of choices and influencers, the alliance offers marketers and their agencies valuable consumercentric information.

The Healthcare Consumer Informatics Alliance has developed data solutions that help marketers and media agencies understand why consumers purchase the prescription, over-the-counter and other health-related products that they do.

The result of the partnership has given birth to an entirely new class of health care informatics, one that combines Nielsen's knowledge of the consumer health and media space with Wolters Kluwer Health's expertise in prescribed pharmaceuticals.

The initial offerings directly link health -related purchases to such influencers as managed care, television and internet ads.

"The health care industry, including manufacturers and media companies, are confronted with tough questions on how to efficiently target and influence patients and shoppers with limited marketing dollars," says Matt Dumas, managing director for NielsenHealth.

This alliance provides a consumercentric view of the patient and the marketplace with metrics that bring a new kind of accountability to health care marketing, he believes.

"The sphere of influence in health care has been steadily expanding from a purely prescriber-centric model to a more patient centric one as consumers become increasingly responsible for their own care," notes David Martin, vice president of sales and marketing for Wolters Kluwer Health.

"Informatics created by our alliance provide an understanding of not only what patient purchasing patterns are, but what is driving these patterns," he adds. "This information is critical for the industry to better develop and deliver appropriate product messages."

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