eHealth for the Pharmaceutical Industry: What companies need to know about trends in physicians and consumers' use of the Internet

Table of Contents

• CATALYST
• SUMMARY
• METHODOLOGY
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• ANALYSIS
  • Introduction
  • Market landscape
    • Consumers in key pharmaceutical markets have the access, but not always the inclination, to look for healthcare information online
    • Physicians should be targeted outside of office hours, although not necessarily through mobile technologies
  • Market drivers
    • The number of physicians and consumers who are accessible online continues to grow
    • Consumerism within the healthcare market is redefining what it means to be a patient
  • Recommendations for industry based on eHealth trends for consumers
    • How consumerism is changing the patient-physician relationship
    • Disease management and compliance as tools of relationship management
    • Pharmaceutical companies should work with physicians to develop consumer-focused disease management and compliance programs
  • Recommendations for industry based on eHealth trends for physicians
    • eDetailing: a model for how the pharmaceutical industry gets reaching physicians online wrong?
    • Online marketing initiatives may be failing because physicians view current approaches as too structured and intrusive
    • Medical professional websites as relationship building tools
• APPENDIX
  • List of figures
  • Definitions and abbreviations
  • References
  • Extended methodology
  • Ask the analyst
  • List of Figures
    • Figure 1: The most promising markets for investment in online channels are those with Internet penetration rates greater than 50%
    • Figure 2: The percentage of online Americans who believe the Internet has improved the way they get information about healthcare grew by only 15% from 2001 to 2005
    • Figure 3: Approximately 8 out of every 10 surveyed consumers have looked for health information in the past 6 months
    • Figure 4: A significant and growing percentage of consumers use the Internet to look for health information for individuals in their care
    • Figure 5: The majority of surveyed individuals in the US, Western EU and Japan access the Internet for personal reasons more than 10 hours per week
    • Figure 6: Consumers would regularly return to websites that provide access to disease, drug and non-pharmacological treatment information
    • Figure 7: In markets where DTC advertising is permitted, consumers are highly likely to use search engines to look for information on specific brands
    • Figure 8: Search engines websites are the most frequently accessed source of online health information, highlighting the ongoing importance of search engine optimization for the pharmaceutical industry
    • Figure 9: Consumers in the Western EU and Japan access websites that are intended for US audiences to look for information on healthcare and prescription drug treatments
    • Figure 10: The relevance of online content and personal privacy are the most important factors consumers consider when deciding whether to access a particular website
    • Figure 11: Physicians from the US and Western EU access the Internet for work-related purposes more often than their peers in Japan
    • Figure 12: Physicians' adoption of mobile technologies continues to grow, albeit slowly as opportunities to access work-related and educational applications improve
    • Figure 13: The use of handhelds for ePrescribing may decrease the influence of pharmaceutical marketing by reducing prescribing decisions to a matter of formulary compliance
    • Figure 14: Approximately one-half of physicians in the US and Western EU and one-third of physicians in Japan access the Internet for work-related purposes from home at least 50% of the time
    • Figure 15: Physicians are generally willing to use a wide-variety of online resources, as long as they meet their needs for relevant information and support services
    • Figure 16: Physicians rate patient requests for specific medications as having an impact that is equal to that of an office visit from sales representative and more influential than an eDetail
    • Figure 17: Increase access to information resources, particularly online resources, cause more consumers to ask their physicians about specific products or treatments
    • Figure 18: Pharmaceutical companies can recruit physicians as an ally in driving consumers to online resources for further information on pharmaceutical drug treatment
    • Figure 19: The demand for disease management tools goes largely unmet across all markets surveyed
    • Figure 20: Disease management and compliance programs in which healthcare professionals play an active role are most likely to be seen as valuable by consumers
    • Figure 21: Surveyed physicians are most interested in using online disease management and compliance tools that are solely patient-focused
    • Figure 22: Despite demand from consumers, few physicians offer either access to, or information about, disease management and compliance tools through their practices
    • Figure 23: Physicians would like to make better use of disease management and compliance tools, but do not have the time or money to implement such programs through their independent practices
    • Figure 24: Low awareness among both patients and healthcare professionals is the most significant barrier to greater use of online disease management and compliance tools
    • Figure 25: Although most physicians have participated in an eDetailing session at least once, comparatively few have participated within the last year
    • Figure 26: Few physicians believe that eDetails have no value, therefore an opportunity exists to improve access to physicians through technology-enabled details
    • Figure 27: For an eDetail to have value it has to serve as a channel through which a physician' s access to information or services is expedited
    • Figure 28: The types of eDetailing that is used by most physicians (e.g., online slideshow presentations and interactive websites) are not necessarily the types of details that physicians report to be of the highest quality or most ideal mode of delivery
    • Figure 29: Physicians are most likely to regularly return to a website that offers them greater or easier access to a variety of information resources, such as drug and disease information, links to CME opportunities and clinical trial results
    • Figure 30: Pharmaceutical sponsorship is not likely to prevent physicians from using a particular website to look for health information or services