NEW YORK ? An Eli Lilly executive at the Mobile Women to Watch 2015 Summit said the company is empowering patients by making health information available through mobile, a significant achievement considering the regulatory constraints with which healthcare companies live.

The executive from the pharmaceutical maker discussed in the presentation, "Eli Lilly and Company: A Prescription for Innovation," how Lilly for Better Health goes beyond medicine to support the individual?s health journey, delivering health education resources on lillyforbetterhealth.com. The session pointed to the power of a mix of videos, interactive tools and downloadable resources to improve the user experience throughout every stage of life.

?We know that 85 percent of the U.S. population is wired,? said Pauline Coderre, Lilly?s strategy consultant for U.S. medical health education. ?And we know that almost 30 percent of the U.S. population are triple screen users. 

?Mobile marketing is essential for us to communicate with people and patients, where they are and where they are active in their health,? she said. ?It?s critical for us to get patients involved in their care and engaged with us in their case and their providers.? 

Research shows that 75 percent of United States adults are online health users ? meaning someone who has used online health information, tools or services in the past 12 months.

Sixty-five percent of online consumers consider the Internet essential for finding health and medical information. For 45 percent, the Web is essential to managing a  disease or condition while for 44 percent, the Internet is essential to making health and medical decisions.

Lillyforbetterhealth.com is a consumer Web site for U.S. adults in English and Spanish. It offers health and wellness information covering the gamut of health topics. It is particularly deep in areas where Lilly has presence and expertise.

Even as no mention of Lilly medicines or products can be found on the site, its role includes supporting physicians who are supporting their patients.

In the last year, ?health information topics researched online included ??symptoms, diet, exercise, prescription drug or treatment side effects, weight loss and over-the-counter medications, among other subjects.

The value of good health information cannot be underestimated.

Poor health literacy is a stronger predictor of a person?s health than age, income, employment status, education level and race or ethnic group. In general, adults with low health literacy: are less likely to comply with prescribed treatment and self-care regimens, make more medication or treatment errors, fail to seek preventive care, are at higher risk for hospitalization than people with adequate health literacy skills and may remain hospitalized longer.

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The launch of Lilly?s first responsive Web site was significant given the highly regulated environment and stringent review processes under which the unit dwells. Issues covering the regulations include medical, regulatory, legal, privacy, data security and quality assurance.

A factor in the site?s successful launch is its lack of product branding.

Early on the designers made decisions about prioritizing content and how that experience translates on mobile and tablet, Ms. Coderres said. The decisions involved internal collaborators, including review bodies.

Given restrictions on the collecting of private information, the best gauge of the site?s success is the number of times content is shared among friends and family members. 

?The average time on the Web site is seven minutes," Ms. Coderres said. "That?s a lot of time for someone to be on there. The people who engage with us, they go deep into the site, they stay there and they share what we have on the site.?