There a very few things in life I can imagine being more important than the quality of one’s health. After all when your health is negatively affected, every activity becomes that much more difficult. We also have become more aware of the relationship between eating and living well and our physical health. Therefore I am not surprised with the findings of
the PEW Study, though from our perspective it is very important that the health industry take notice of these findings. It found that the number of Americans answering that the searched for health related information in the last year was 72%. A 10% increase from the last time the performed the study. I don’t know about you but that is quite a large number of Americans, about 90 million when you break it all down. 77% of those people used a search engine to begin their search, in other words they used some set of specific keywords. Only 13% started on a health specific website. 50% of those who searched searched for a family member or friend. People were asked in the study, “when looking for advice who did you turn to” the survey participants answered that 70% of the time they asked their doctor or other health professional. As for health information on mobile, 52% of Smartphone users looked for health care information on their phone. 63% were looking for answers to specific disease or medical issues. 47% were looking for a treatment or procedure.
This bit of information has to be great news for any practice, why? Because that mean you have the ability, with the right strategy to provide the answers and care that millions of Americans need and want. You can be the answer to the questions they need. From a business point of view, your practice can benefit from having these potential patients visit you.
