Sixty percent of physicians already use or are interested in using online physician communities, while 40% of doctors are not interested in participating in online physician communities, according to a Manhattan Research survey.
Sermo and Medscape Physician Connect are the two largest physician-only online communities. Each has about 100,000 users.
Physicians participating in such online communities are more likely to:
- Be primary care physicians;
- Be female;
- Own a PDA or smartphone;
- Go online during or between patient consultations; and
- Be slightly younger than the average physician.
Results are based on a Q1 2008 telephone and online survey of 1,832 practicing U.S. physicians.
Source: Manhattan Research, "Taking the Pulse(r) v8.0"