News in brief - July 18, 2011

Social media may help clinical trial recruitment, report says

Social media tools could help researchers reduce the time to recruit participants for clinical trials, according to a report by Blue Chip Patient Recruitment, a division of the marketing agency Blue Chip Marketing Worldwide.

Researchers surveyed 179 adults from February through April and found that 81% were interested in participating in clinical trials but only 16% had done so. Thirty percent were aware of clinical trial websites.

The authors said there is a lack of awareness about recruitment efforts for clinical trials (bluechipmarketingworldwide.com/BCPR_form/BlueChip_SocialMedia_5-2011.pdf).

Engaging physicians in social media would be an effective way to recruit clinical trial participants, the report said. Eighty percent of respondents would prefer to receive clinical information online from a physician, and 70% were comfortable hearing about clinical trials online from a representative of a health care association.

Though few respondents said they would be comfortable receiving clinical trial messages on Facebook (19%) or Twitter (14%), more than 50% said they would be comfortable with an online support group, 36% with an online chat room, and 32% with an online message board.

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WellPoint fined for failing to disclose security breach

A breach of data security has cost WellPoint's Indiana subsidiary, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, $100,000 as part of a settlement with the state's attorney general.

As part of the agreement, reached June 23, the company admitted it had a security breach and failed to notify state authorities as required under state law. It also paid a $100,000 fine and agreed to cover the cost of up to two years of consumer credit monitoring for affected consumers and losses due to identity theft linked to the incident, up to $50,000 per customer.

The agreement settles a lawsuit filed in response to a breach that left identifying information for 645,000 people -- 32,051 in Indiana -- vulnerable between Oct. 23, 2009, and March 8, 2010. The company began notifying customers in June 2010, but didn't notify the attorney general's office as required by a 2009 state law.

A corporate statement said WellPoint "implemented IT security changes to ensure that this situation will not happen again, and we have received no indication that any information that may have been accessed has been used inappropriately."

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