72% of Physicians own a smartphone. Apple platform surpasses Blackberry in physician market penetration
The trend of physician smartphone ownership has risen from 30% in 2001 to 72% in 2010. 32% of physicians own an iPhone or iPod touch, while 22% own a BlackBerry. Only 4% own a Google Android mobile device.
Email, internet use and Drug reference are the top reasons for smartphone usage during workday.
Mental Health and Oncology related searches account for almost half of visits related to pharma sites
According with Comscore half of online Americans view health content online (91 million). 87% of health users visit content sites and 34% visit pharma sites.
Health category growth is outpacing overall internet growth. In the last 3 years in fact Health sites growth was about 64% (in terms of unique visitors), against the 18% of total internet.
The major therapeutic areas are Mental Health (32%), Oncology (16%), Cold/Flu (13%), Cardio/Cholesterol (13%).
82% of Physicians expect online customer service from pharma
42% of US physicians have used a pharma customer service portal online. The top five physicians service portals are: Merck, Pfizer, Lilly, Whyeth and Shire.
According with Manhattan Research, the top features physicians already used on service portals include professional education resources and info on upcoming medical conferences.
The top features physicians would like to use in the future on physician service portals are disease management tools for patients and therapeutic area breaking news.
Health inquiries from users have an impact on decisions or actions and there are clearly more positive experiences than negative ones
According with “The Social Life of Health Information”, among the six in ten e-patients say their most recent search had an impact, mostly minor, on their own health or the way they take care of a loved one.
In particular:
- 60% say the information found online affected a decision about how to treat an illness or condition
- 56% say it changed their overall approach to maintaining their health or the health of someone they helped take care of
- 53% say it led them to ask a doctor new questions, or to get a second opinion from another doctor
- 49% say it changed the way they think about diet, exercise, or stress management
- 38% say it affected a decision about whether or not to see a doctor
- 38% say it changed the way they cope with a chronic condition or manage pain
Insight from the Publicis Healthware WebMonitor
66.6% of traffic to health related websites comes from Search Engines.
