Dr. Wikipedia will see you now

The IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics published a fascinating report recently on the engagement of patients through social media. Specifically they investigated Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube as channels that patients used as research for healthcare questions.

The report investigated:

•  The regulatory environment in the US as well as the EU and Canada (not well defined yet)
•  Adoption of social media by the Pharmaceutical Industry (it’s low)
•  Return on investment for social media (it’s difficult)

Some very interesting tidbits:

•  Wikipedia is the leading single source of healthcare information for patients and healthcare professionals
•  There is correlation between Wikipedia use and medicine use for a large number of disease areas
•  Older populations that rely more on medical advice use internet research less

The report is available on their website but here is a copy as well.