But is it so surprising to find so few physicians using the web as a tool to reach their patients? Perhaps not, as many doctors continue to express concerns regarding privacy and confidentiality of medical records.
Doctors have expressed a genuine interest in the benefits that the Internet can bring to their relationship with their patients. Email, ePrescribing and compliance tools are of particular interest to physicians but the difficulties just mentioned continue to be a deterrent to their deployment. This is where pharmaceutical companies could step in to help the physicians and ultimately help themselves.
However, most physicians do not even know that compliance tools exist. Datamonitor found, in its February 2001 Physician Insight Survey, that many physicians did not know of the current existence of such tools. Given that many pharmaceutical companies have already invested in the creation of these tools, they should make an effort to educate the physician community about their existence.
Given the reach of the Internet, it seems that the changes in the patient – physician relationship will continue to evolve with many healthcare consumers taking more responsibility for their own health. This provides unique opportunities for pharmaceutical companies to aid physicians in this transition with materials to share with their patients and to aid patients with content and materials to discuss with physicians, as well as with tools to aid in management of their own health.
