Where People go to look for Medical Information on the WWW

Everyone is doing it. Patients do it, physicians do it, and family members do it.



For the current generation (Millenials, Gen-X) the use of the internet and familiarity with search is a sine-qua-non. They have used it in school, most likely beginning in elementary school. It has become an educational staple, much like learning your ABC and/or multiplication tables.

One of the key ingredients is to  know where to search for what. A simple Google search will result in thousands of results, which is not much help in the long run. Google's search engine optimization is not built for research. It is a marketing tool based on several algorithms to  analyze who watches what, and if they return.

The PEW Internet Project evaluated internet usage in depth, by illnesss, chronic disability, age, other demographics

Health Fact Sheet

Highlights of the Pew Internet Project’s research related to health and health care.

A key ingredient is the ease of access to this information:

90% of U.S. adults own a cell phone; 58% of U.S. adults own a smartphone (January 2014 survey). For more, see: Mobile Technology Fact Sheet

87% of U.S. adults use the internet (January 2014 survey). For more, see: Internet User Demographics

Online health information:

72% of internet users say they looked online for health information within the past year.

• This is based on a September 2012 survey, the first time we asked people to think only about their online health activities in the past 12 months. For historical perspective, see: Health Topics and Who Doesn’t Gather Health Information Online?

77% of online health seekers say they began their last session at a search engine such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo. Another 13% say they began at a site that specializes in health information, like WebMD. Just 2% say they started their research at a more general site like Wikipedia and an additional 1% say they started at a social network site like Facebook.

The most commonly-researched topics are specific diseases or conditions; treatments or procedures; and doctors or other health professionals.

Half of online health information research is on behalf of someone else – information access by proxy.

26% of online health seekers say they have been asked to pay for access to something they wanted to see online (just 2% say they did so).

Clinicians remain a central resource:

When asked to think about the last time they had a serious health issue and to whom they turned for help, either online or offline:

• 70% of U.S. adults got information, care, or support from a doctor or other health care professional.
• 60% of adults got information or support from friends and family.
• 24% of adults got information or support from others who have the same health condition.

People turn to different sources for different kinds of information:

When people have technical questions related to a health issue, professionals hold sway. When a situation involves more personal issues of how to cope with a health issue or get quick relief, then non-professionals are preferred:

Technology Revolution

Three major technology revolutions have occurred during the period the Pew Research Center has been studying digital technology – and yet more are on the horizon.

Broadband

First, the rise of the internet changed the way that people got information and shared it with each other, affecting everything from users’ basic social relationships to the way that they work, learn, and take care of themselves. The speed of internet connectivity picked up considerably with the rise of broadband connections. As people adopted those higher-speed, always-on connections, they became different internet users: They spent more time online, performed more activities, watched more video, and themselves become content creators.

Second, mobile connectivity through cell phones, 

and, smartphones and tablet computers, made any time-anywhere access to information a reality for the vast majority of Americans. Mobile devices have changed the way people think about how and when they can communicate and gather information by making just-in-time and real-time encounters possible. They have also affected the way people allocate their time and attention.

                                                               Social

Third, the rise of social media and social networking has affected the way that people think about their friends, acquaintances, and even strangers. People have always have social networks of family and friends that helped them. The new reality is that as people create social networks in technology spaces, those networks are often bigger and more diverse than in the past. Social media allow people to plug into those networks more readily and more broadly – making them persistent and pervasive in ways that were unimaginable in the past. One of the major impacts was that the traditional boundaries between private and public, between home and work, between being a consumer of information and producer of it were blurred.

Health Care Social Media is a in social media. The use of hashtags allows anyone to search on twitter for specific diseases, treatments, and more including twitter postings from scientific meetings, ie #AMA2015, or #AAFP2015. This allows any twitter user to receive tweets from the specific meeting, filtered out from the twitter stream.

This last category  has potential to be the most important. Facebook pages, Google plus pages offer a visible and easily accessed methodology to 'llke" "follow" or + topics of interest. Many of these sites come directly from a hospital and/or clinic. 

Static web pages are fixed in content. A web page coupled with an active daily or weekly social media posting using hashtags as a search modality gives both user and patient an active inter-action.

These formidable changes have not been limited to healthcare. Health professionals were lagging in interest possibly due to the issues of privacy and confidentiality.  HIPAA clearly defines the limits of information in regard to personal identification placed in a public space, accessible to anyone. 

Access to these high speed resoures remains limited however in many rural and some suburban areas due to the unavailability of modern broadband resources. The development of high speed 4G, and LTE cellular networks is also lacking in some areas. Profitability and a business model for those regions remains a paramount barrier.

Who is not using modern technology to access health information?

ACA Enrollment Issue? If All Else Fails Try Social Media

From Fierce Health Payers

Many consumers can't get through to insurers due to long customer service wait times, so they're turning to social media--Twitter in particular--to express their complaints and criticisms. And insurers are listening, often responding directly to consumers with ways to immediately rectify the problems.

The Affordable Care Act has severely effected customer service for all companies participating in the affordable care act.  Frustration has mounted even for those not involved with health benefit exchanges or subsidized care. Anthem Blue Cross in California is experiencing the brunt of many tweets after it canceled individual plans and switched hundreds of its members into new plans and withdrew premiums from their bank accounts without their knowledge. In several situations, Anthem spokesperson Darrel Ng tweeted individually to people who complained about the withdrawals, asking for their contact information so he could resolve the problem, ProPublica reported.

Did you know that Anthem has been using social media for customer service and complaints for some time?

Ng told ProPublica that consumers now are interacting with companies, including Anthem, beyond the traditional phone call. "In response to this new demand, we created our customer service Twitter account @AskAnthem several years ago to assist members," he said. "As consumers themselves started proactively contacting our other Twitter accounts, we started directing these inquiries to customer service for assistance."

Aetna spokesperson Matt Wiggin said the insurer recognizes people are using other methods to communicate. "There have been some instances where call volumes have been heavy and if people have not been able to get through or been able to get the information we need, they've either reached out to us through social media or other means available," he told ProPublica.

California HealthCare Foundation has been tracking Twitter comments related to the reform law and its recentreport found less conversation about the law between December 2013 and Jan. 15, 2014, compared to several months ago when HealthCare.gov launched with glitches and enrollment errors.

Recognizing consumers take more frequently to Twitter, insurers Aetna and Cigna have been maintaining a strong social media presence to manage their brand while taking quick action to remedy any complaints aired publicly,FierceHealthPayer previously reported.

"Social media gives us a tremendous opportunity to learn what the community needs," Carissa O'Brien, Aetna's social media director, told KHN. And by using Twitter, Aetna can educate and inform their followers about health and wellness.

She and her team of six employees aim to respond within an hour of the roughly 250 Tweets each month dealing with claims and other services. But O'Brien recognizes that it's just the beginning. "If we're looking to focus a 100-plus-year-old company on social media, that's massive cultural change," she said.

Using Twitter also keeps the insurers accountable. "Social media acts as a public documentation of how you resolve the situation," Ini Augustine, a social media strategist and head of SocialWise Media Group, told KHN. "It's more than a marketing tool."

Insurers like Aetna, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield and Cigna have designated Twitter feeds, @aetnahelp   @askanthem and @cignaquestions, respectively, that focus solely on marketing and sharing health-related news.

            

Read more: Insurers increase their Twitter presence to manage image - FierceHealthPayer http://www.fiercehealthpayer.com/story/insurers-increase-their-twitter-presence-manage-image/2013-08-09#ixzz2sP3Ud2Nd
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