Feature Article

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Medical Writers to Convene at Documentation and Training Life Sciences, June 23-26, Indianapolis

Medical, science, and marketing writers, and health care information technologists, will convene in downtown Indianapolis this June at the Documentation and Training Life Sciences Conference to explore ways to reduce the amount of time and energy it takes to create the content needed to run pharmaceutical companies, medical device firms, and health and hospital corporations. Attendees will explore solutions to health care information management challenges—everything from speeding the time it takes to get a new drug to market to designing health care websites that cater to an increasingly international audience.

Held at the Union Station Crowne Plaza from June 23-26, 2008, the event aims to attract science, medical and technical writers and editors, web marketing and PR professionals, regulatory specialists, information architects, knowledge managers, document engineers, interaction designers and web content and online community managers. The theme of the event is The Right Prescription for Life Sciences Content. Thought leaders, educators, analysts, consultants and practitioners will discuss content manufacturing processes, best practices, standards, software tools, and methods designed to help attendees understand how and where improvements can be made.

• Keynote presenter, Joe Gollner, a structured information management expert, will discuss how life sciences organizations can leverage “intelligent automation” to ensure information quality.
• Featured presenter, Ann Rockley, president of The Rockley Group and author of the best-selling book, “Managing Enterprise Content”, will help attendees understand the need for a “unified content model” to help improve quality, speed time-to-market, and reduce content creation, management and delivery costs.
• Jerome Nadel, Chief Experience Officer for Human Factors International will tackle Web 2.0 technologies and their impact on health care providers.
• Content management technology analyst, Alan Pelz-Sharpe will provide an overview of the content technologies market.
• Localization and translation guru Maxwell Hoffmann of Welocalize will help attendees understand how to create content that communicates with non-English speakers at home and abroad.

Other presentations of interest include:

• A case study that examines how medical device maker Gambro BCT used the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) to handle translated topics in a regulated environment
• A review of what is required of organizations to create valid Electronic Common Technical Documents (eCTD)
• Case studies of companies using a Microsoft Word solution to create labels that comply with the Structured Product Labeling (SPL) standard
• A demonstration of advanced scanning and recognition technologies that can help hospitals and medical facilities make electronic records from handwritten paper-based forms and medical records.

View the complete conference program.

“Indiana is leading cluster for the health and life sciences, said Kristin Jones, Vice President, Business Development, Indiana Health Industry Forum. “Our ability to offer a complete spectrum of innovation, services, and product development is unequaled. Conferences, like this, continue to highlight Indiana and the Midwest and reinforce great perceptions of our capabilities.

“Innovation is not limited to inventing new drugs or medical devices,” says Scott Abel, conference program manager and publisher of the popular technology blog, The Content Wrangler. “Innovation also means admitting that the content we create is a business asset, worthy of being managed efficiently. Most companies still don’t see the savings potential of creating a repeatable process for creating, managing and delivering information to those who need it. They spend their time focusing on improvements made by outsourcing, off-shoring and budget-cutting. We aim to change that.”

Readers of The Content Wrangler can save $300 on registration when they register by telephone before May 15, 2008. Call +1 978-649-8555 and use discount code: The Content Wrangler. You’ll pay only $999 (regular price $1299). This offer is not valid on online orders and is not retroactive, nor can it be combined with other offers.

Don’t delay! Great hotel room rates are available for a limited time (only $139 a night!)
Media passes available upon request. Interviews with Scott Abel or any of the presenters at Documentation and Training Life Sciences 2008 may be arranged with Andrea Ridder at Levelsix PR. Phone: 317-696-7478 | Email:

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Filed under: Content Quality Management : Localization : Medical Writing : Technical Writing : Translation

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