Sure, the title of this is supposed to be a little provocative, but isn’t that the point? I’m taking a cue from the source of this information after all (read on, you’ll see). Recently, Pharmaceutical Executive published a report on a recent Manhattan Research study (press release here) looking at the use of online social networking sites by physicians. There’s already been some good debate about this article on several blogs, so I won’t rehash the same things, but rather I’d like to just correct some of the misconceptions of the study. 

First, the results. Here’s the relevant quote from the press release: “With about 60% of physicians already using or interested in using physician online communities, it’s the right time for pharma to look into the marketing and research opportunities offered by this channel,” said Erika S. Fishman, author of the analysis and Director of Research at Manhattan Research.”

So, 60% of physicians use or plan to use online social networks. Great. This shows that using this channel to communicate with physicians might now be a worthwhile opportunity. The study could have ended here and provided some valuable insight to the community. However, it didn’t. Instead, this piece of information has been pulled out from the study as well: physicians using online social networks prescribe an average of 24 more scrips each week than those not using these tools. Pharma Executive actually said this: “Although most of the data from the survey isn’t unexpected (users tend to be younger, female, primary care doctors, or smart phone owners), item of interest is that physicians that troll online forums prescribe an average of 24 more scrips each week than their unwired peers.”

The clear implication is that using online tools make physicians write more prescriptions. Perhaps I’m overinterpretting as I’ve seen on many other blog posts about this article, but I don’t think so. Here’s the next line in the Pharma Executive article: “According to Fishman [the study's author], this prescribing trend could be due to the almost “viral” nature of chat forums and bulletin boards. If one doctor talks about a positive reaction his or her patient had with a treatment option, other physicians could be more apt to prescribe it.”

So, there it is, the study’s author basically saying that these online social networks are making doctors write more prescriptions. No?

It’s great that more doctors are using social networking sites, but the stat about them writing 24 more scripts BECAUSE they use social networks is a bit much. There’s no control group here that accounts for physician age, practice size, specialty, etc. In other words, the likely  real answer is that doctors who use social networks have bigger practices and thus write more prescriptions. Social networking didn’t cause this, but rather is just another demographic point. It could be that older doctors, who practices are also smaller, don’t use social networking and this accounts for the difference. In fact, I’d guarantee this is the case.

I find it hard to believe that using a social network makes you write more prescriptions unless these users are suddenly now giving drugs to patients when they hadn’t before. I doubt this is the case.

A comment I made on this issue on a blog was answered by Manhattan Research and you’ll see that they defend their study, as they should. They say that the study doesn’t suggest that the social networking causes more prescriptions, but I’m just going by what the author herself said to Pharma Executive.

Unfortunately, all this debate has overshadowed a valuable piece of data. Social network use appears to have hit a critical mass among physicians. Indeed, these networks also seem to attract the physicians who write the most prescriptions as well. This is a potentially tremendous opportunity for the first healthcare company that can figure out how to crack into these networks. However, unwelcome intrusions won’t be greeted with open arms, so you must find the balance between promoting your products, but also keeping the spirit of the social network intact (i.e., no selling). People rejected Facebook’s Beacon concept even though it was friends selling to friends, but here, you aren’t even friends, so the backlash could be worse.

I think one of the best uses of these networks is (and will always be) for research and not for promotion. Sermo allows data to be gathered by pharma companies to see brand perceptions of its products and also provides some opportunities for clearly labeled sponsor questions. Listening to doctors talk to one another in the real world (not in contrived focus groups) when they aren’t being watched is where the most useful data comes from. Sermo allows this (after stripping out identifying information) and may provide the best, most accurate data about how physicians view and use certain drugs.

There’s still a great deal of work to be done here, but it’s a good start.

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