My Favourite Tipples from a Medical Device Information Professional
Jinfo Blog

By Robyn Smith

Abstract

My Favourite Tipples are shared by Robyn Smith. She shares some of her favourite online resources specific to the medical device arena.

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In my previous position, I entered the unknown world of medical devices. After spending many years supporting the information needs in the pharmaceutical industry, I assumed the sources for medical device information would be very similar, if not the same.

However, there is a dearth of unique resources that are medical device specific. This appears to be for a variety of reasons including fewer players in the device space, and significant differences in product development processes and timelines.

I can in no way claim to be an expert, but I did find reliable and useful resources that I used when creating a daily news alert for senior management that covered significant events in the medical device industry.

• MassDevice.com is an online news source that updates on an hourly basis as well as produces feature articles and blogs. It is often the first place news will appear - but it may not always be able to substantiate it with another source until the next day. They have a free newsletter that is delivered to your email daily as well as "breaking news" updates.

• FierceMedicalDevices is one of the many online publications from the FierceMarkets group. I have been a big fan of the FiercePharma, and was glad to find that there was a comparable product for the device market. I like that there is editorial content along with links to the original source content. It provides only about five news stories a day - but does pick up things that other, even subscription-based, news sources do not.

• Medical Device Daily is a Thomson Reuters publication that is subscription-based. Its strength is in-depth and insightful articles on major news stories. It has unique content that includes analysis on geographical markets that can't be found in other places. Stories can appear a day after a major news event press release due to the their in-depth nature.

• Clinica is an Informa subscription publication that is similar to Scrip for the pharma industry. It closely follows regulatory activity and events in the medical device space - primarily ex-US. Now that Informa owns the Gold Sheet and Medtech Insight, there is a chance that some consolidation of the publications may occur.

• Becker's Hospital Review covers the hospital space. Internal current awareness efforts frequently focus on competitors. Given the ACC Act and pressures on hospitals' budgets and performance, this resource helps you keep abreast of topics that are of key interest to a major customer base for medical device companies. It is US-centric and content is updated daily.

An article in FreePint which I found particularly interesting:

• "Are Companies Making the Most of SharePoint?". It seems that every company is implementing SharePoint as their platform of choice for their intranets which means information centres need to comply. This article points out that SharePoint can be used as much more than just a document storage platform. It can be a true collaboration tool. Information professionals are often at the forefront of collaboration within their organisations and this article provides a great overview of its pros and cons as well as potential SharePoint features that can be exploited to further those efforts.

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