"Ask the Pharmacist" at Everyday Health

Everyday Health, Inc. recently launched a new service called “Ask a Pharmacist.” This online service puts consumers in touch with licensed pharmacists. Do you have a question about a specific drug? The service is free and questions are generally answered within seventy-two hours of submission. Given that so many patients are taking multiple medications, it's important for consumers to get educated about drug side effects, drug-drug interactions, safety warnings, and updates from the FDA.

“The ‘Ask the Pharmacist’ feature underscores our commitment to delivering new features requested by our users,” says Marjorie Martin. “Drug information is an important content category for our audience and many of our users have questions about proper dosage and potential drug interactions.”

To access the "Ask a Pharmacist" feature, visit the Drugs A-Z section on EverydayHealth.com and you'll have the opportunity to ask a question in the light blue box.

Everyday Health Inc. is a leading provider of online consumer health solutions. The company provides its consumers, advertisers and partners with content and advertising-based services across a broad portfolio of over 25 websites that span the health spectrum – from lifestyle offerings in pregnancy, diet and fitness to in-depth medical content for condition prevention and management. Everyday Health, formerly called Waterfront Media Inc., is headquartered in Brooklyn, NY.

FDA and Everyday Health Collaborate

It's great to see that the FDA is collaborating with content providers such as Everyday Health and WebMD to expand the reach of consumer health information. As more people become tech savvy, they are using their computers and smartphones to research health information. However, some of the content out there is not accurate or reliable.

According to the FDA, the partnership will initially include:

• A new online resource at www.EverydayHealth.com/FDA: The new co-branded Web site will feature a variety of health content from FDA. The latest information on food and medical product safety as well as prevention and wellness topics will be featured. In the event of breaking public health information, Everyday Health will also feature special “FDA Alert” modules in select locations throughout the site and network, and in e-mail newsletters.
• A new FDA/Everyday Health co-branded weekly newsletter: The latest FDA consumer health information will be sent to subscribers in a weekly Everyday Health newsletter (www.EverydayHealth.com/FDA) The FDA/Everyday Health newsletter will contain “FDA Alerts” as well as up-to-date information on drug safety, cosmetics and skin care products and children’s health products, to name a few.

To learn more about the Everyday Health–FDA partnership, click here.

MayoClinic.com partners with Everyday Health

Wow, this is big. No, this is huge! MayoClinic.com (owned by Mayo Clinic) has partnered with Everyday Health (operated by Waterfront Media). Will this form the ultimate consumer healthcare portal?

You may be wondering, "why this partnership?" I think the answer is rooted in advertising revenues. Consumers are drawn to healthcare ads and many companies are willing to pay quite a bit to target consumers. Sometimes I wonder if people will eventually learn to completely ignore ads. The truth is that certain ads can be very difficult to ignore. What does this do to WebMD? Maybe they should partner with Google.

Here's a snippet from the press release:

Everyday Health, operated by Waterfront Media, will support Mayo Clinic's online advertising efforts through a multi-year relationship. Waterfront Media will represent MayoClinic.com in the following business categories: CPG (consumer packaged goods), OTC (over the counter drugs), retail consumer goods and services, cosmetics, food and beverage, auto, finance, entertainment, technology and media MayoClinic.com will continue to work directly with pharmaceutical advertisers.

Note of clarification from Ginger Plumbo, the publicist for MayoClinic.com:

MayoClinic.com is still owned and operated by Mayo Clinic. We are only working with Everyday Health for advertising representation in certain categories of advertising, but will continue to represent ourselves in the pharmaceutical category. Mayo Clinic will continue to manage MayoClinic.com's content, navigation, and overall management of the site.