Medical Professional Websites: Building Relationships with Physicians Online

Introduction

Medical professional websites allow pharmaceutical companies to increase competitiveness through the use of online channels to raise awareness of their products. By providing Internet-based opportunities for professional development, patient education materials and clinical tools, pharmaceutical companies can cost-effectively build relationships with a large number of medical professionals.

Scope

• Analyzes the attitudes of physicians and non-physician prescribers towards current pharmaceutical Web-based initiatives
• Examines the site features that are most likely to induce prescribers to return to a particular site
• Analyzes the ways physicians would like the Internet to play a role in their relationship with patients
• Recommends how best to target physicians online based on the results of Datamonitor’s 2004 Physician Insight Survey

Highlights

Attracting return users should be the primary focus of a Web-based initiative. In order to attract a large number of return users, pharmaceutical companies should design a site that supports professional development, facilitates physician-patient communication and provides practical clinical tools.

Pharmaceutical companies can meet the needs of non-physician prescribers by including nurse-specific and physician assistant-specific pages within a healthcare professional website. These pages should be as detailed as the physician-focused pages and should address the issues most important to each group.

With the majority of physicians using the Internet for work-related purposes, the opportunity to build relationships with physicians through targeted websites should not be overlooked. Pharmaceutical companies should begin to focus more of their marketing resources on creating and advertising value-adding medical professional-focused websites.

Reasons to Purchase

• Assess the potential to reach non-physician prescribers through dedicated pages within a healthcare professional website
• Recognize the importance of attracting return users to a website through high-quality site content
• Discover the web-based resources that are valued most by medical professionals for use in their daily practice