It seems that someone’s always got a question about what percent of people have iPhones or how many doctors email their patients. The goal of this page is to capture all those stats in one place for quick reference. This will allow you to find the data you need to help “sell” your program to the rest of your company or to confirm you idea makes sense.
The plan for this page is simple. It’ll be a wiki similar to the Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki, but this one will feature statistics and data. Please use this link to submit something to include in the wiki, to request an edit, or removal of something you think does not belong. We respond to every submission via email.
I’ve included sources for each piece of data. Some of the links point to data included paid reports, but that was released for this purpose.
If you are looking for something specific, there’s simple way to search this page using your browser’s built in “search engine.” Simply press Ctrl+F and type in a keyword you are looking for. Your browser will show you all the instances of that term.
Pharma and Healthcare Digital Data Bank
If you find this wiki helpful, please send a tweet, update your LinkedIn or Facebook status, and/or whatever your preferred means of sharing is. You can just copy and paste this: “Pharma and Healthcare Digital Data Bank. http://bit.ly/eaMMz (via @jonmrich)” Thanks!
This wiki was made possible by our company, Bridge Worldwide.
Newest entries are labeled with “*NEW”
[Editors: Please do not edit ABOVE this line.]
Last Updated: June 22, 1:45 PM EDT, by Jonathan Richman
Digital Healthcare Habits
_
Over 145 million U.S. adults use the Internet to research health information. (Q3 2008)From Manhattan Research Source.
More U.S. adults turn to the Internet than to doctors for obtaining health and medical information. (Q3 2008) From Manhattan Research Source
Over 10 million U.S. adults are mHealth Consumers, reporting to use mobile devices to look up health information. (Q3 2008) From Manhattan Research Source.
About two-thirds of online European physicians use Wikipedia as a medical resource monthly or more often – and they’re even recommending it to patients. (Q4 2008) From Manhattan Research. Source.
“The percentage of U.S. physicians using smartphones surged to 64% in 2009, according to Taking the Pulse® v9.0. In fact, the number of physicians using iPhones more than doubled in the past year alone. Physicians’ increased reliance on smartphones is not cannibalizing Internet usage on computers. Rather, physicians are spending more time online overall and are using both computers and smartphones to access to the most up-to-date online medical and pharmaceutical resources at a variety of points throughout the day.” From Manhattan Research Source.
The importance of the Internet to physicians has been steadily increasing over the past decade. About 90% of U.S. physicians report that the Internet was essential to their practice, while only about a fifth of physicians felt this way in 2001. (Q1 2009) From Manhattan Research. Source.
Currently, U.S. physicians conduct 41% of their pharmaceutical research online, but expect to increase that percentage to over 50% in the near future. (Q2 2008) From Manhattan Research. Source.
About four out of ten U.S. physicians report to communicate with patients through email, instant messaging, or secure messaging services. There is a healthy consumer interest in connecting with doctors online, and physician acceptance is a major key to pushing this type of communication forward. (Q1 2009) From Manhattan Research. Source.
Virtually all U.S. physicians report that at least some of their patients bring health information they found online to an appointment, and more than two-thirds of physicians believe that this trend is a good thing. (Q1 2009) From Manhattan Research. Source.
Over 60 million U.S. adults are Health 2.0 consumers – reporting to use health blogs, online support groups, prescription rating sites, and other health-related social media applications. (Q3 2008) Manhattan Research Source.
Social Media
_
“Social media impacts nearly 40% of recent hospital or urgent-care center patients, with more than half of 25-to-34 year olds reporting they are influenced by it, according to the Spring 2009 Ad-ology Media Influence on Consumer Choice survey from Ad-ology Research.” From MarketingVox Source.
_________
- 34% of adult online users (54 million people) in the U.S. said they have connected to others or to the content others created online about health and wellness issues in the past year (“Online Health: Assessing the Risk and Opportunity of Social and One-to-One Media,” Jupiter Research, 2007 )
- 72% of people use social media sites “all or some of the time” to educate themselves about specific medical conditions (iCrossing survey via Greenfield Online, 2008)
- Nearly half (47%) of online consumers report that user-generated content has at least some impact on their health or prescription treat-ment decisions (Manhattan Research, 7th ePharma Consumer survey, 2008)
- The average person can share health information with a 50-person network within 30 days (“Influencers and Health Advertising”, MedTrackAlert and Interactive Media Studies (IMS) Program at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio Study, 2007)
_________
Digital DTC Relevance Rankings
Top Condition Groups Online for Health
Position Condition
________________________________________
1. Acne
2. Adult ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)
3. Fibromyalgia
4. Migraine
5. Allergies
6. Irritable Bowel Syndrome
7. Anxiety Disorder/Social Phobia
8. Asthma
9. Restless Leg Syndrome
10. Cancer
Among U.S. adults (18+)
Source: Cybercitizen Health™ v8.0 (2008)
From Manhattan Research. Source.
__________
Non-Personal Promotion
_
“Sixty-seven percent of physicians had a positive attitude toward electronic promotional activities, up from 62% a year ago, according to an SDI study. Additionally, 73% of the physicians surveyed for SDI’s ePromotion Annual Study 2008 said pharma’s electronic promotional activities (or ePromotion) were equal or superior to traditional face-to-face encounters.
Other findings from the report include:
- Sixty-nine percent of the physicians surveyed participated in ePromotional activities in the evening, outside of office hours.
- In 2008, the average amount of time spent by a physician on a single ePromotion activity was 18 minutes.
- Physicians ranked Merck as the leader in terms of the best ePromotion activities, followed by Pfizer and AstraZeneca respectively.
The study, which included feedback from approximately 1,000 physicians across 14 specialties, defined ePromotion in three categories: virtual details (promotions without live communication); video details (live online promotion or telephone-assisted internet browsing); and virtual events (seminars, CME and KOL events, web conferences and group discussions).” From MM&M Source.
__________
“Traditional” Promotion
_
“For every 100 reps who visit a practice, 37 place their products in the office’s sample cabinet, and only 20 speak to a physician in person, said the New York-based consulting group TNS Healthcare.” “About one in four physicians works in a practice that refuses to see drug reps. Of doctors who do see reps, about 40% will meet with detailers only with scheduled appointments. The by-appointment-only figure jumped 23% during the last six months of 2008, according to a survey of more than 227,000 medical practices representing 640,000 physicians that was released in February.” Study from March 2009. From AMA News. Source.
________
