Digital Focus: The Patient's Quest for Knowledge

This post was authored by @MikeMadarasz of the Institute for International ResearchThe pace of innovation and discovery in healthcare has spurred a shift in the way patients stay educated.  Not only is this information changing at faster rate (according to IMS Health, the Wikipedia entry for breast cancer has changed 100 times in five months), but it’s now coming at us from more directions than ever.  Social media, RSS feeds and e-mail marketing have made it even easier for those publishing news to flood our timelines and inboxes with information.  Some might see this as overwhelming but according to a recent survey by Patient Power, cancer patients are readily waiting for the content.  The surveyfound that 80% of cancer patients indicated they will search for information online at least weekly.  In addition, 45% plan to look for content on a daily basis.  These figures demonstrated a steady climb over the last few years as a similar survey from 2011showed 63% of those with cancer regularly searched for information online.  Perhaps the more significant takeaway from this year’s study is the seemingly more equal distribution across age groups.  The 2014 results state that 58% of those with cancer seeking information online are over the age of 60.  In comparison, only 50% were over 56 years old just three years ago.  Andrew Schorr, the founder of Patient Power, sounded impressed while he explained the results as in...
Source: ePharma Summit - Category: Medical Marketing and PR Tags: cancer patient information Digital Pharm Marketing Digital pharma Digital Pharma Conference ePharma epharma West Pharma Content Marketing research cancer patient social media pharma Source Type: blogs