While Sermo.com tends to be highlighted in the press, there are quite a few social networking platforms cropping up for healthcare industry professionals. Some serve particular niches like medical students or nurses; others serve all types of HCPs.

Full Article from davidrothman.net

The number of doctors and other clinicians publishing blogs detailing their professional experiences, successes, and frustrations for all to see is increasing. For marketers, it offers an enlightening glimpse into the healthcare professional's daily life, but it also raises questions as to the privacy of patients they write about.

Full Article from USAToday.com

A recent Manhattan Research survey shows that more physicians than ever feel that patients coming into their office with online materials is having a net positive effect. However, some specialists such as neurologists, surgeons, and cardiologists, tend to be more wary of how the patient may use that information.

Full Article from iHealthbeat

During the first quarter, the online health information category grew 12% over the same period last year. This represents 55.3 million monthly U.S. visitors, or 31 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience, according to data from comScore.

While the traditional players - WebMD, MSN and Yahoo! continued to lead the category, smaller players are gaining traction. Healthline.com traffic rose 269 percent, while QualityHealth.com jumped 114 percent. Recent entrant RevolutionHealth.com has doubled its traffic since the beginning of the year to 486k visitors in March.

comScore data also reveals a high degree of user loyalty for the health portals, as evidenced by the low degree of cross-visitation that occurs within the category.

Full Article from PRNewswire

According to results of the 10th annual national survey on Consumer Reaction to DTC Advertising of Prescription Medicines, the most common action consumers take after seeing a DTC ad is to seek more information. Empowered by the web as an on demand resource, they may seek information repeatedly during the treatment/decision before, during and after a prescription is filled.

Full Article from PharmaLive