Boston Consulting Group research reveals e-health paradox
"Two contradictory findings have surfaced," said Deborah Lovich, a Vice President of BCG and co-leader of the firm's e-health initiative. "On one hand, patients who use the Internet to explore health issues report that the information they find online has a real impact on how they manage their overall care and comply with prescribed treatments, making the Web an important lever for companies seeking to get patients more involved in care decisions. Yet, typical online traffic-building strategies don't seem to work, since usage patterns in e-health bear little resemblance to those in e-commerce."
According to BCG's research, the more patients use the Web for health, the stronger the response to the call to action issued by health care companies. The study revealed that those who use the Internet are two to three times more likely, than infrequent users, to take action towards their diagnosis and treatment. In addition, the study highlighted the fact that when those patients who frequently use the Internet consult their doctors, an estimated 36% of them suggest the specific illness that they are suffering from, with 45% of them requesting specific treatments.
BCG believes a number of healthcare companies find reaching patients online a difficult process. The company's research revealed two key dissimilarities between the searching behaviors of patients and consumers. Firstly, unlike consumers seeking other information online, patients don't explore health topics on the Web at their leisure or for entertainment. According to BCG, 77% use the Internet for health issues only when they have specific questions. In addition, BCG predicts that 65% of patients looking up their health queries on the Web, usually start with general search engines. According to BCG, only 24% tend to use health portals such as WebMD and InteliHealth as their first port of call, with a further 11% using disease-specific Web sites.
"These findings hold promise for all health care companies that benefit from influencing patient behavior, such as pharmaceutical companies promoting new therapies and managed care players promoting patient compliance with disease-management initiatives," Lovich said. "The struggle will be figuring out how to reach them, particularly since where patients will end up when they log on for answers to health care questions remains highly unpredictable."
In a report released earlier titled "Vital Signs: The Impact of E-Health on Patients and Physicians", BCG segmented patients according to the severity of their condition and their attitude toward physicians. The four patient segments were characterized into the following categories;
- Accepting (8% of patients) - Rely entirely on doctors for health information and decisions.
- Informed (55% of patients) Rely on doctors to make health decisions but typically go online after an office visit to learn more about a diagnosis or prescribed treatment without, in their view, wasting the doctor's time with questions.
- Involved (28% of patients) View themselves as partners with their physicians in making care decisions and seeks information online both before and after visits to discuss with their doctor; however, still rely on their clinication to make the ultimate decision regarding care.
- In control (9% of patients) Feel best suited to determine their care; use online information to diagnose themselves before visits to determine which treatments they want and to convince their doctor to treat them accordingly.
BCG's new research shows that while 38% of in-control patients and 23% of involved patients, often use the Web for heath, only 11% of the informed and 3% of the accepting segments use it in that way.
"If, as the data suggest, patients continue to become more active and therefore more likely to visit disease-specific sites, we can expect a shift to deep, narrow health sites," Lovich said. "Consequently, understanding the disease- and segment-specific offerings that attract and retain patients will be an essential element for health care companies to build a future presence online. For the time being, however, search engines remain the most dominant vehicle for reaching patients on line."