Alternative medicine scenario in India

Alternative medicine which comprises the other category of medical therapy or treatment has not yet got its due credits. This sector of medicine is yet to secure place in the minds of patients, the main reason for this is very slow healing process i.e. time consuming and also some are painful therapies. The sector is vast and each has its laws and concepts on healing.

Below is the range of different types of therapies:

Alternative medicines

1. Homeopathy
2. Ayurvedia
3. Unani

Therapy

1. Yoga
2. Acupressure
3. Acupuncture
4. Kerala Ayurveda massage therapy
5. Meditation

The best part of alternative medicine is that it has no side effects and they are natural. This medicinal procedure builds-up body’s immune system, so the body becomes strong enough to protect itself.

The main problem faced by alternative medicine is awareness in general public, except Homeopathy and Yoga of which the general mass are informed to a large extent. This can be seen from the statistics on the Homeopathic industry which reported an increase of 25% in last 5 years; compare to this Allopathy has grown on 2% in this fiscal. So imagine the growth, if these alterative medicines get same awareness as allopathy?

To start the alternative medicine sector should decide on the key messaging part for the general masses. They should hold ground level events to reach the target audience. This sector should also look at taping media to publicize successful cases and start support group, this will help to get across to its patients and solve queries. The strategy should also tap in film placements which influence the mass a lot. Only through awareness and word-of-mouth the alternative medicine market will grow.

Crisis in Healthcare industry

As this sector deals with life - every life saved translates into big publicity and every life lost translates into lot of negative publicity very difficult to erase.

Crisis in this sector is usually classified into the following
1. Death of patient
2. Sexual harassment charges
3. Medicine overdose
4. Duplicate drug

There are many situations where crisis can take place, but above mentioned are few of the important ones.

Incase of any crisis the thumb rule is:
1. It is very important to understand the crisis, talk to all the parties involved.
2. Inform the spokesperson and people affected to maintain a common statement for media. In the meant time setup an enquiry committee.
3. Keep media informed about the latest reports only after approval.
4. Get assistance of legal department/consultants.
5. Understand what media wants and diplomatically solve all the queries.
6. There are many aspects to deal with crisis so it is necessary to hire a communications agency.

Here I will quote a case study to better understand crisis
Molestation charges against male doctor by female patient during checking and no female attendant is nearby. And the doctor is not guilty, but how to prove it?

What, I have highlighted is an extreme crisis situation which can tarnish the image of the doctor as well as of the hospital. Here, it is important to understand the doctors’ side and the patients’ side of the story. Can schedule meeting with a psychiatrist of both the parties, whose reports can help to understand the reasons behind such incidence. The legal dept and the hospitals spokesperson should keep all channels open and interact with the media (the information shared with the media should be approved by the mgt). As far as possible the culprit should not speak to media and have faith in the hospitals management. If the patient is wrong their will be loopholes in her story which can surface during interrogation. It might happen that the patient was sexually starved and was trying to advance towards the doctor and he might have objected resulting in this claim. The other possibility can be that doctor was checking her heart beats and by mistake touched her breast. Only after discussions this type of case can be solved.

Once the case is solved both the parties (doctor & patient) should speak to media and convey the right message. Keeping media informed helps to gain positive respect from media which helps in the long run.

The rise of Homeopathy

Homeopathy medicine which can be referred as the third front in medicine after Allopathy and Ayurvedia is regaining its credibility in the recent times. The patients themselves have turned towards homeopathy after using allopathy and ayurvedia over the years.

Homeopathy was discovered just over two centuries back by Dr. Samuel Hahnemman, a German. But somehow the way this particular medicine follows was very time consuming and this became the main reason for drift in patients towards other type of medicine. Also, the media hardly recognized homeopathy and that it can cure patients of diseases. Homeopathy was also not able to prove itself with enough studies to ICMR or FDA, which hampered its further credibility. In medicine credibility is the most important feature and media helps to a large extent to establish it in the minds of consumers/ patients/ caregivers. Since allopathy was able to cure faster, the results were faster to experience, this form emphasized allopathy as a credible form of medicine.

But now the patients are more aware and they understand homeopathy as natural form of medicine i.e. it helps your body to fight the disease by using the same symptoms which was the reason behind disease. Homeopathy uses the law of similar for treatment. Small doses of the disease causing bacteria are given to the patient so the patient creates immune system for that particular disease and fights against to cure the patient. The same treatment style is used when treating any patient on bite by a poisonous snake, the medicines used to treat venom are manufactured using venom.

So homeopathy hardly harms our body or has any side effects, since the medicine is manufactured using the same symptoms which is causing the trouble..

Recently couple of doctors has taken initiative to promote Homeopathy form of treatment, and their efforts have seen the light of the day. Now the number of homeopathy clinics has increased to cater the new informed patients. These patients are opting for Homeopathy, post their experience of allopathy medicines which cause side-effects. Whenever we think about Homeopathy the first name which comes to our mind is Dr. Mukesh Bhatra, he is on the fore-front of the brigade to inform patients about homeopathy through his extensive columns in various media channels. There are other doctors like Dr. Rajesh Shah who reached out internationally through web to create awareness about this form of medicine.

Some reference websites

http://www.classicalhomoeopathy.com/
http://i-heal.blogspot.com/

Why doctors should opt for vernacular media?

Well, everybody knows that we require treatment from doctors as we grow older. It is also known fact that most old/aged people prefer vernacular media or newspapers, rather than any other media. Even the people late in 40s prefer vernacular media to keep themselves updated happenings. This can also be found from a small survey done at the doctors own clinic, where the doctor’s receptionist can ask the patients about which types of newspapers they read.

Vernacular media/publications are more reader oriented and they have more editorial content than their English counter-part. The vernacular publications provide the readers a taste of their own and culture. They give have special sections for readers on culture and old age medicines/therapies.

The vernacular media has lots of space for health news. As a matter of fact the vernacular media content is more for the reader to use, so they have a dedicated section for health and wellbeing related news.
It is quite easy for doctors to get featured in vernacular media as they have very limited amount of news to feature. They are most happy when any doctor promises them to provide a series of articles. A series of articles in vernacular publication better than on of small quote in mainline English media.
A doctor can easily establish a good rappo with editor or the chief of bureau of the particular vernacular publication. With this the doctors can pitch him to come on the advisory board for health news for the publication; this will help to get featured in the health pages. The publication benefits from having a doctor journalist on board and the doctor benefits news coverage.

Jagoore campaign for Tata Tea

Jagoore campaign for Tata Tea
The campaign started on a very good note.
Brand name - Tata Tea
Tag line - Jago re
Product features - Strong tea, aroma, strength in morning
The product came from a respectable industry stable i.e. TATA SONS. The group has enjoyed consumer preference traditionally.
The brand Tata tea was a known and well established brand in Indian markets. To create more brand recall and position the brand as top of the mind recall the brand launched the "Jagoore" initiative.
The company tied-up with NGO Janaagraha which works in the area of election and citizen rights. The initiative JAGOORE was launched to inform voters about their rights through TVCs, print, radio spots, online and on-ground events. Jagoore for your rights went well with Tata Tea Jagoore to a new morning. This initiative received excellent response by media and the citizens using the internet coz all the campaigns emphasized registering on http://www.jagoore.com/. But the question is has this campaign helped the brand or helped the NGO. I think this initiative has outgrown the brand, now people recollect Jagoore more with voting than Tata tea. Was this campaign necessary to reach consumers? Still the top of mind recall in terms of Tea for me is Brooke Bond or Taj Mahal.
Has the sales of Tata tea gone up to the expected level or have more people decided to vote. Doing BTL brand connecting activity helps the brands who cannot advertise or publicize, why was their a need for Tata tea to do this association? Also since Jagoore was associated with registering online the target consumers were from well-to-do family who drink tea based on taste and perception. So my question is how the sales have benefited from this initiative?

Indian Media & How it will evolve in the next 5 years

Indian media history

The history of Indian media dates back to year 1887, when Bal Gangadhar Tilak launched Kesari. But the history dates back to Hickey's Bengal Gazette or Calcutta General Advertiser which was launched in 1780. Through the rulers of Indian Colony had their own news paper and international editions of newspapers available then for their updates. The main job of the media then and now remains the same of informing the consumers about the goings-on in the society.

Mahatma Gandhi had often used media to lobby against imposing of new laws by the British government. Like, way back in 1906 when the British government imposed new poll-tax Zulus in South Africa, Mahatma Gandhi often wrote column in ‘Indian Opinion’ to create awareness about the ill-effects of the new tax. Also, when in India he used to send press notes to media providing them with information on the Congress proceedings, freedom struggle, etc.

Shahid Bhagat Singh used media to convey his message during his court trial period. These trials were attended by journalists who conveyed his message across to them, which in turn reached the citizens and freedom fighters of India i.e. the target audiance.

Of late, even novel authors Jeffery Archer have demonstrated the use of media through his novels Cane & Able and Prodigal Daughter. So, media has played a big role during the Indian freedom struggle by conveying message and action plan of the freedom fighters to the common people, while on the other hand the authors have created stories based on the media and its involvement in the story characters.

Present scenario of Indian media

Media has greatly evolved since its nascent stage, since its printing days. Earlier it was only print media, and then came radio channels, with the opening of the television medium, the media sector witnessed the launch of electronic media, further evolution saw the birth of internet. With the launch of each new medium the consumer started receiving news quicker.

Usually, print media takes atleast 24 hours for the news to appear, radio and television procure within 24 hours, while Internet takes probably less than an hour to go online and reach the readers. Through the Indian consumers have seen and experienced different mediums there is yet a lot to come.

At present, in the Indian media scenario there is a battle between the publications and electronic media for exclusive content. This led news channels/publications to define the news they will be covering in terms of general news, financial news, technology news, political news, lifestyle, movies, etc. With the growing number of publications and TV channels the journalists have started sensitizing all the news to gain TRPs. But this trend is slowly growing towards nsumers’ oriented content, because the consumer is the king and viewer ship matters.
This was the same era blogs started gaining some popularity, but still they were in a very nascent stage and consumers were hardly referring to blogs for news, also the print and television media was criticizing the bloggers for their credibility.

But matters changed when the infamous Drudge Report published Monica Lewinsky scandal and opened a can of worms. The Drudge Report changed the media scenario completely, and blogs got credibility in the minds of the readers.

It is interesting to know how the media evolved with the readers/viewers taste patterns. Below are some of the listed exampled of how media has changed according to consumer taste patterns:

1. Mid-day the tabloid, Mumbai: It covers news relevant to city in which it runs the edition. Most of the news is about some gossip, sensitize situation, celebrity gossips, etc, but there are some exclusives which it covers using visual aids. These videos are uploaded on Mid-Day website for readers who want to understand the story in-dept. So the readers now can SEE & HEAR the news. The readers can also vote on the news content about there review.
2. Economic Times a financial publication, India: The publication is the no.1 financial news publication in India. The publication also has online presence through the website http://economictimes.com/ so, oftenthe print stories appear on the website. The website is updated every hour with the latest developments in the market; this news might not be available in the print edition. Some of the stories get extensive and in-depth analysis on the website as lot of space is available online, and readers often comment on those stories.
3. Times Ascent a supplement from TOI: This is a bi-weekly supplement from the Times group free with the Times of India edition. The supplement also has a huge presence online with the Times Ascent website. The supplement has restricted space for stories, so the http://www.timesascent.in/ website offers this platform for most stories. The website has dedicated column for HR heads who often write on new trends, CSR initiatives, interview techniques, etc. This website also has internal content tie-up with http://www.timesjobs.com/ website for content sharing, which helps the jobseekers with new HR trends information.
4. Most of the TV channels have an online presence in terms of videos of exclusive stories and transcripts of the same. The electronic media has evolved to such an extent that each show can be seen live on the website. So viewers at any location can watch their favorite shows.
5. With more consumers interested in blogs, the senior journalists often run official blogs connected to the publication/TV channel websites. The journalists share their views on these blogs, which are related to the economic scenario of the country/city.
6. ET Now a soon to be launched business news channel: ET Now which will be launched by Times group as an extension to Economic Times newspaper has the teams of ET Now and Economic Times working together along with the website correspondents. With this the sharing of news content across the three media channels will be flexible. Any exclusives will be covered by the electronic media using visual aids, the print media will cover the important aspect of the story and the website will cover full length with in-dept analysis receiving updates every hour. Now to check how the consumers have responded it will be connected to SMSs service. The same news will be Twitted by the consumers and bookmarked on del.ici.ous.
7. With the media changing according to the consumer taste, the consumer himself becomes a journalist. The Indian media has started to experience it with the launch of CJ (Citizen Journalist) by CNN-IBN and http://www.whitedrums.com/ a website dedicated to citizen journalists so anybody can report about any happenings.

Future of Indian media

The Indian media is growing at rapid speed involving different tools available online and mobile to garner readers/consumers attention. But the question remains where it is headed towards? What is the future? How will we experience the news or how to get readers involved in the story?

Some new medium for the media industry which will become a common place for the consumers/readers in the future are as follows:

1. Podcasts - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasting
2. Electronic paper - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_paper
3. News on mobile - http://www.google.com/mobile/default/news.html
4. Info-entertainment – Information combined with entertainment, so consumers get information through entertainment shows.
5. Social networking - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network
6. Professional bloggers - http://www.labnol.org/internet/blogging/define-professional-blogger-full-time-blogging/3792/
7. Bluetooth 4.0 – For sharing information
8. Skype - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype
9. Mobile 3G enabled
   

The future of media is highly unpredictable with the number of innovations in the space of communications are increasing. With the rise of alternative communication mediums the news will be more factual and statistics proven for the consumers to understand. In the future the content matter will be less and visuals will be more as consumers will like to grasp and understand the story faster wasting less amount of time. The films will be of shorter length, so we can watch a whole movie in an hour.

The news on the TV Channels will be easily downloadable by sending a message. Recently launched Mobibuzz TV (http://mobibuzz.in/) provides content for mobile media, they cover the news which is uploaded on their website, by registering on the website the consumer can select the content he/she wants to see. This content is sent to the consumers’ mobile through MMS. With the launch of 3G platform this content can be easily downloaded on a business phone. These platforms offer the consumers to decide what they want to view and when, so the consumer will be king who decides on the news content. The news will be more consumer centric as the story will have followers commenting and interacting with the journalist.

There is a high possibility of 3 –D news which can get viewers involved and let them experience the story.

With the evolution of media, the public relations industry will evolve with more focus on the brand/product/company specific communication, also the industry will have measuring tools for that communication. This evolution will also impact product communication strategy, which will become innovative and involve the consumers into the product.

Here is a case study on the product communication in the future where the character portraying Mihir from ‘Kyuki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’ is working in Tata Teleservices Ltd as manager Human Resource dept.

• The story will revolve around his work-place area promoting the working environment at the company.
• This helps to promote the new vacancies in the company, when he informs the web development dept.
• As the work involves interaction with different dept, he will interact with the the sales and marketing dept, so through this the new services and offerings can be promoted.
• Mhir uses a Tata Nano a common mans car to go for shopping on weekends so promotes the car.
• Mihir often uses ICICI Bank ATM so the services are highlighted, in turn he starts learning to use the netbanking service, and this informs the viewers how to use netbanking service.

A lot of products can be marketed using this format for the soap-serials, since a lot of different companies will be marketing through this platform, the product placement and communications rates will be inexpensive for the companies. Also with the launch of satellite communications channels like DTH and CAS and the newest form of cable i.e. IPTV brand communication will be a lot easier. The set-top boxes will tap the viewer ship patterns and post that can communicate with the consumers through alternate mediums may be RIFD
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID).

However, it will be very difficult to gauge the innovations in media industry. The communication tools available internationally, are now easily available in India. With the rise in demand for the better content the media will provide better and shorter content for consumers. The need for better content will create demand for better PR professionals who will provide all the information required by the journalists. So, it will be important for these professionals to become information centers for the journalists/bloggers. Earlier the corporate communicate dept. was a part in the marketing dept, then with evolution the corporate communication manager started managing the marketing role also. Now the total communication of the company i.e. internal and external is managed by the corporate communication team.
With further evolution, the corporate communications role will also involve the information officers’ role and executive assist to the Managing Director, to advice on the different communication strategies for the company.
Last but not the least: consumer will be the king who will decide what type of new he/she wants and how he/she wants.

Homeopathy the THIRD FRONT in medicine

Everybody has heard about Homeopathy, but never understood how it helps us. Lot of patients have beneficted from Homeopathy, but hardly anybody promotes it. Traditionally homeopathy has been in existence for more than two centuries. But it received widepread public attention through its effectiveness during epidemics of cholera in the 19th century. During the great influenza epidemic of the 1920's, homeopathic hospitals reported low death rates, while hospitals employing conventional medicine reported death rates of 20% to 30%.
Since the late '40's, double blind trials testing homeopathy on various medical conditions have led to mixed results. Some are claimed to support the use of homeopathy. In other cases, this method of evaluation proved itself incapable of documenting the success of homeopathic cures.
In a report published in the September 20, 1997 issue of Lancet, Dr. Wayne Jonas, head of the Office of Alternative medicine, and Dr. Klaus Linde, concluded that, when the evidence of the 89 studies of homeopathy judged to be of good quality was pooled, homeopathy was deemed to be 2.45 times more effective than placebo.
In 1996, an unpublished study from the Homeopathic Medicine Research Group, an organization formed by the European Union to determine the effectiveness of homeopathy, concluded that homeopathy was more effective than a placebo... and the probability was only 0.027% that this result might be due to chance! Remarkably, a group skeptical toward homeopathy had assisted in the study's design.
In the February 9, 1991 issue of the British Medical Journal, an analysis by two Dutch researchers asked to assess the efficacy of various forms of alternative medicine, reported that although initially they had been sceptics as to homeopathy and alternative medicine in general, "The amount of positive results came as a surprise to us... The evidence presented in this review would probably be sufficient for establishing homeopathy as a regular treatment for certain indications."
Another, more recent, study stated “Compared with placebo, homeopathy provoked a clear, significant, and clinically relevant improvement in nasal inspiratory peak flow, similar to that found with topical steroids.” British medical Journal August 19th 2000.
http://www.hpathy.com/homeopathy/homeopathy.asp

The basic law of Homeopathy is let like cure like. This means that the appropriate substance to treat a disease is one which induces similar symptoms in a healthy person. Then, it is crucial to know the symptoms associated with various substances, remedial pathogeneses.

Their have been lot of communities promoting Homeopathy, like http://i-heal.blogspot.com/ is doing a signature campaign to promote this alternative medicine. HEAL is an independent, open-membership platform whose mission is to promote health and well being through homeopathy and endorse homeopathy as a system of medicine. Our key objective is to create awareness about homeopathy. The HEAL web site and blog, aims to reach people who are new to homeopathy with helpful information.