Blogging Docs catching on?

Jun/27/2007 05:57 Filed in: Internet & DTC Marketing
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About 1% of all blogs deal with health, according to a 2006 study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Many are by consumers writing about their own health issues, but "the numbers of health care providers who are blogging is steadily growing," says Fard Johnmar, founder of Envision Solutions, a New York health care marketing firm. Why not Blog? As hard as it to believe physicians are people too and are as confused about healthcare issues as we all are.



According to a recent article in "USA Today" Some doctor blogs are intended for the broader public. But many, especially those by anonymous writers, feature doctors venting — about patients, hospitals, insurers and malpractice lawyers — to each other. Others dissect health news or health policy debates, minus the usual stuffiness of medical journals. Nicholas Genes, a New York City emergency room physician, wrote recently (blogborygmi.blogspot.com) about a stroke patient with a "lopsided smile," treated in the ER with the clot-busting drug tPA: "I wheeled her out of the department, into the elevator, and we glided up to the unit. Her family members rode along, silently. The elevator doors opened, and the neuro resident greeted us. I handed over her chart and said goodbye to the patient. Her family thanked me, and she acknowledged me — with a bright, symmetric smile."



Blogs are a chance to express ones self but they are also a opportunity to reach out to other physicians and patients to gain understanding of the challenges that today's HCP's go through. The business model for physicians is very complicated and they often must spend hours upon hours on paperwork just to get paid and make ends meet. If anyone wonders why physicians don't have time to meet with sales reps anymore they should spend a couple of days with doctors observing all the paperwork they have to submit. On top of this pharma expects physicians to keep up to date on the latest drug developments and label changes?


The whole model of pharma drug reps needs changing and it needs to be examined NOW. The idea of cutting down the sales force within a company so that multiple sales reps from the same company don't call on physicians is a great step but it assumes that the remaining sales people will be able to meet with the physician and detail the key brand messages. Most physicians are harder to meet than the President of the United States right now but Blogging may be a way for them to share experiences and learn from each other and that's what the Web is all about. It's too bad pharma continues to ignore the Web as a tool to bring HCP's together.
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