A June 2009 by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project and the California HealthCare Foundation found 61% of American adults look online for medical advice and information.
This report shows that more Americans are reading commentaries about medical issues, consulting rankings or reviews of doctors, or listening to health-related podcasts. A smaller group of so-called e-patients, 20 percent, actively post comments and reviews on different online list-servs, blogs, or message boards.
"We are beginning to see e-patients turning to interactive features both to help them find information tailored to their needs and to post their own contributions," said Susannah Fox, co-author of the report and associate director of Pew's Internet & American Life Project.
Pew also found, in light of Obama's $19B stimulus for healthcare providers to beef up information technology, that 59% lack confidence in electronic medical records with 76% indicating an expectation of privacy breach of online records!
Privacy continues to be the #1 user experience issue online and, according to numerous studies, has topped reasons for not purchasing online for nearly a decade.
Source: Pew: The Social Life of Health Information (PDF report) & CNET: Pew study: More patients turning to the Web
Frank Spillers' Comment:
It is important to recognize, especially if you are trying to create a social media strategy for your website, that the users consuming your content are very distinct to those that create content. The Pew study finds 20% are contributing content. Having a closer look at what Forrester Research found a few years ago is valuable: 21% are so-called Creators, another 37% are so-called Critics (US online adults). See the breakdown graphs here. Incidentally, IT decision makers are fairly representative of mainstream users, with 29% for Creators and 40% for Critics. See graph here.
What's the significance?
Websites can benefit tremendously from what I call User-contributed content (aka User Generated Content). Pew's 2009 findings (61% of US adults are consuming social media) correlates with Forrester's 2008 study that showed 69% as 'Spectators' in this category. A big question is how do you support the majority of "lurkers" from the minority of contributors? You don't want to intimidate the content consumers but at the same time you want to offer ways for users with content to contribute to do so. Moreover, traditional media and publication companies get nervous about the 'Participation Economy' and need strategies to deal with this chaos issue of control vs. censorship vs. authentic voices.
Here's a web seminar I did that looks at the important relationship of Community, Participation and Trust with regard to Customer Retention. This seminar (free for playback- registration required) offers simple and practical ways you can harness the power that can be gained from supporting User Contributed Content on your site.
User Contributed Content web seminar (60 minutes playback):
http://www.experiencedynamics.com/training/archived-events/user-contributed-content
Privacy concerns, the other big finding from Pew's new study is even more challenging. In a recent online healthcare records web application design project, we found usability testing to be essential for understanding, balancing and managing user perceptions of privacy.
From the case study:
Bringing patients into 21st century online healthcare management is easier said than done. One of the problems is that users do not currently have a solid “mental model” of what to expect with emailing a doctor, retrieving records or paying bills—all from one web application ‘dashboard’. In other sectors, like online banking, the paradigm is well established and users know what do expect. Not true in healthcare.
Privacy is another huge challenge. Not only are HIPPA (Health Privacy Rule) regulations lurking behind online healthcare records but all doctor-patient communications are privileged. Worse, user perception of privacy provides a design challenge—When do patients know their information is secure? How can they tell? What is the difference between the public site and the private web application in the user’s mind? (Privacy concerns rank as the #1 issue for consumers online).
Read the entire case study here:
http://www.experiencedynamics.com/clients/case-studies/providence-health-services