The internet never stands still and with its continued expansion pharmaceutical companies are being forced to embrace it, or be left behind in Medical Website Design the race to market their products. The new trend of social media and interaction though presents its own particular problems and undertakings. But the heart of any company presence is still the website. Medical website development is not however as simple as it is for many other companies. The medical sector is closely regulated, with good reasons and medical website design is no different.

This regulation of medical web page design is Medical Web Design clearly seen in the recent case of Bayer who were to be found in breach of the 1993 Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry’s Code of Practice. They were adjudged by the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA) of being in breach of clause two of the code, namely “bringing discredit upon and reducing confidence in, the pharmaceutical industry”. Whilst this is serious in itself, the report at no time prohibited the use of social strategy ad media. But what is clear is that the guidelines and Code will be enforced. So any health company looking to embark on a medical web development strategy had best adhere by them.

So What Is the Point Of Reference for Medical Website Design?

The first point of call is the aforesaid Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry’s Code of Practice. It is a comprehensive document covering all aspects of the marketing and public facing interaction in those activities. Particular attention should be paid, during medical web page design, to Clause 24, which specifically deals with the internet.

When this is inspected, it is some of the Clause 24 Supplementary information that raises the eyebrows. For instance if you were engaged in any medical web development in the UK, then Clause 24.1 concerning access, brings together all sorts of security and access issues. This is especially the case if your medical web site design is to be dual purpose for public and health related professionals.

There is a duty to ensure that the promotional information on health products and drugs is separated for the two groups. In fact unless you have a purely informational site for professionals which you exclude access to the public completely from, by way of say password membership scripts, you actually have to provide information for public consumption as well. The two sets of information and access funnels for this sort of medical web page design must be kept entirely separate. Additionally there seems to be a case to actually have processes in place for the design that will identify the visitors and their intentions to be able to effectively direct them to the right areas.