Do you like to watch the evening news? I do. However, I grow very tired of drug commercials for all sorts of things like allergies, constipation, stomach upset, and Cialis. I bet I have seen that happy couple in two matching bathtubs a hundred times during this last TV craze of Olympics and political conventions. UGH! Like most, though, I figure if the ads didn’t work, the drug companies wouldn’t run them. A recent study says otherwise.

Although direct-to-consumer advertising by pharmaceutical companies has increased significantly since the FDA loosened its restrictions on the practice in 1997, the campaigns have had little effect on sales, according to the British Medical Journal.

Well, enter Phreesia. Phreesia is a privately held company focused on patient check-in. The company provides physician offices with a free wireless touch screen and swipe card enabled device that looks a lot like an etch-a-sketch (see above). Phreesia automates the patient check-in process by collecting personal health information from the patient (giving the patient something better to do that read old golf magazines?). The product is designed to interface with physicians’ existing and future technology and is compatible with electronic medical records (EMRs)- so they say.

Now, guess who’s paying for these “free” devices? Your neighborhood drug company, finding an “educational” way to push content, customized to the patient’s diagnosis and self-reported symptoms, via the device. It is clever. I am just hoping I don’t have to watch more ads about Activa after registering for a visit.