Physicians not happy with health web content by pharma

As a follow up to the research we conducted earlier with physicians on the use of the Web by patients we followed up with a quantitative survey and asked physicians to rate pharma product websites

By Richard Meyer on Jul 7, 2009

As a follow up to the research we conducted earlier with physicians on the use of the Web by patients we followed up with a quantitative survey and asked physicians to rate pharma product websites on a scale of 1 to 5 with one being poor and 5 being excellent (information on disease and medications). I expected that there would be some who felt that pharma product websites could be better but I was not prepared for the comments that indicated that pharma websites have a long way to go.


 


Here are the key findings from that quantitative research of 133 physicians (PCP): 


-Pharma product website language was not patient friendly and often required some medical knowledge to understand. 


-There was not enough emphasis on working with the physician toward a diagnosis and treatment options or on tests that might be required to confirm diagnosis. 


-Not enough emphasis on the importance of follow up visits. 


-Safety information has to be more patient friendly 


-Needs more general disease state information written by HCPs for patients and in a language that addresses their concerns. 



We asked about social media as well and physicians are concerned that the information on social media sites may not be representative of the general patient population. If you have 10% of patients posting and 90% of patients reading that 10% may not contain information that is statistically relevant. Physicians were very concerned about medical information from journals that are covered by the media and used the recent story about Lantus as an example. If a patient comes to me about the possible connection of Lantus and cancer what am I supposed to tell them ? I dont have the necessary data to make a decision one way or another and a change in medication means that there maybe a chance for non-compliance.