Thank You… for your interest in becoming a
Pain Treatment Topics (Pain-Topics.org) Supporter.

The information below provides an overview of how your organization can participate in this very successful educational project.

For additional information, please contact…

Stewart B. Leavitt, MA, PhD, Executive Director

Phone: 847-724-3091

E-mail: Info2@Pain-Topics.org

Why be a supporter?

Pain Treatment Topics is committed to providing scientifically valid, unbiased, and non-commercial content for healthcare providers and their patients on the causes and effective management of pain. We rely on support in the form of educational grants to fund the considerable costs of developing and providing this sort of quality information and education to a worldwide audience. Through such support, we are able to provide these offerings via the Pain-Topics.org website and our News/Research UPDATES series [here] absolutely free and without restriction to all site visitors.

Supporters are asked to participate via educational grants for a minimum period of one year.

Who are supporters?

Supporters are companies manufacturing and/or marketing products or services for the healthcare industry and/or consumers. They also may be institutions, agencies, or other organizations – public or private – with a mission of improving public health and having a special interest in better pain management.

Since our mission is educational rather than commercial, sponsored product or service advertising notices, display advertising, banner ads, pop-up windows, or other marketing techniques that might detract from the professional vision and appearance of Pain-Topics.org are avoided. However, bona fide news of supporters' special events, educational offerings, services, or products are provided in various ways for the information and convenience of site visitors.

Acceptance of supporter participation in Pain Treatment Topics and the Pain-Topics.org website, and the posting of supporter-related news items, is not to be considered an endorsement of the events, educational programs, services, products, or other offerings from the supporter. To comply with current guidelines and standards requirements, Pain Treatment Topics will be responsible for all website content selection and project development independent of supporter control.

What are the levels of supporter participation?

Pain Treatment Topics is a registered division of SBL Ltd. (an Illinois Corporation). Our operations are extremely cost-efficient, without any agency overhead, mark-up, or profit-taking by investors. All funds are devoted exclusively to project-related activities by staff and experts who are direct contributors to Pain Treatment Topics, the Pain-Topics.org website, and the News/Research UPDATES series..

There are currently two levels of participation:

Full Supporter

Full supporters are organizations that meet or exceed a minimum threshold level of annual educational grant funding. (To be equitable, the threshold amount is determined by what other full supporters are currently contributing or plan to contribute during their next annual cycle.)

Associate Supporter

This level recognizes that there are some smaller organizations wanting to support the educational activities of Pain Treatment Topics, but are unable to contribute at the threshold amount of annual funding for a full supporter. Organizations wishing to participate at this Associate level are considered on an individual basis. At any time during the year in which they are participating, Associates may increase their funding to accrue at a level of full support.

What are the benefits of participation?

While we adhere to the highest ethical standards and principles, there are a number of benefits afforded supporters to justify their financial investments in Pain Treatment Topics:

Support of Pain-Topics.org is an ongoing way to demonstrate responsible organizational citizenship in the pain management community by promoting accurate, evidence-based information and education for the field.

Participation as a supporter provides continuing, tangible, and favorable exposure of the participating company or organization to a diverse audience of healthcare professionals, as well as to patients, their caregivers, and the interested public.

Within a noncommercial and non-promotional framework, Pain-Topics.org provides more direct and visible recognition of supporters than is afforded by any other website of its type:

<> Supporters are acknowledged by the placement of their company logos in the lower left-side column of the Home page and ALL primary pages at the website that have side-bar columns. Logos also are displayed at the UPDATES weblog. Associate Supporters are recognized by having their names indicated in gold text only.

<> The logo or text is linked to a supporter's profile page where visitors can briefly learn more about the organization. From there, a link to the supporter’s website is provided, allowing interested visitors to learn more about the organization. Full supporters are afforded a more complete profile with multiple links, as appropriate.

<> Toward the top of our “Related Websites” section, a description and link to the supporterr's website is provided. Supporters have their listings highlighted to stand out.

<> In many cases, links to qualifying articles, reports, CME activities, brochures, etc. that the supporter has created, or had created for them, are posted at the website. Such offerings from full supporters are highlighted by their logos for easy recognition.

<> All documents that we create ourselves for the website – feature articles, research reports, newsletters, etc. – include appropriate notices of full supporters.

<> Full supporters are appropriately acknowledged in all Pain Treatment Topics medical-media advertisements and press releases.

  

Supporters are provided quarterly reports of Pain-Topics.org activity, new developments at the website, and other relevant information of importance. Quarterly financial recaps are provided indicating operational expenses and budget status.

Some facts about Pain Treatment Topics.

After several years of planning Pain Treatment Topics and the Pain-Topics.org website went public in late 2005. Since that time, we have become dually certified and have won several healthcare communication/education awards. Today, we are among the top ranked websites in the pain management field, according to the Alexa.com and Compete.com Internet Tracking Systems, and receive on average 70,000 page-visits by 50,000 human visitors per month (this is excluding hits by search engines, bots, spiders, and other automated entities that inflate numbers reported by other websites).

Pain-Topics.org is a “Resource of Resources” Internet gateway in pain management. The site has nearly 3,000 links to carefully-selected external documents and websites of value and importance to healthcare providers. The various documents resident/hosted at our own website – most of which we research/write ourselves – are downloaded more than 22,000 times each month, on average. The list of active subscribers to our “e-Notifications” – news of site updates and other developments e-mailed once weekly – includes more than 2,800 persons, 72% of whom are healthcare professionals. The site is maintained and/or updated on a daily basis.

In July 2009 we launched the Pain-Topics.org News/Research UPDATES series (http://updates.pain-topics.org/) featuring regular reviews of vital research and news developments in the field. These brief articles also play an advocacy role in promoting critical analysis of evidence-based approaches for better pain management, and allows for reader comments. Since its inception, the UPDATES series has grown steadily and rapidly in attracting visitor activity.

Our Executive Director, research/editorial assistants, and medical advisors collectively have nearly 250 years experience in the healthcare field as practitioners and/or educators <Click for Staff Listing>. Pain-Topics.org is one of the few websites in the pain field certified by both HONcode (Health on the Net) and Web Medica Acreditada standards.

We also are dedicated to complying with and supporting accrediting and other organizations promoting the highest ethical standards and principles in the presentation of accurate and useful medical information on the Web, including: the PhRMA Code on Interactions with Healthcare Professionals; ACCME Standards for Commercial Support; ACPE and ANCC standards; and, U.S. FDA Guidance on Industry-Supported Scientific and Educational Activities. Extensive policies for the Pain-Topics.org website have been established, adhering to the most rigid and accepted criteria <Click for Policies>.