Advanced Healthcare: A Look At The Current Online Trends

Abstract

Since it took a while to recognize the significance of marketing in the field of healthcare, one could have doubts when it comes to the use of the Internet in healthcare marketing.  Yet, the growing use of the Internet in healthcare supports the notion that the Internet is probably the most powerful vehicle for distributing health information to millions of individuals and it is one of the best marketing tools in this field.  Accordingly, we are now witnessing so many practices that we can safely assume that it is now the time for e-commerce in healthcare industry.  While this may be true for many, there are also some who are concerned about using the online options in the field of healthcare.  Since these concerns are mostly about the questionable accuracy of the “health” information on the net, they are rather serious and deserve an in-depth look.  This paper reviews some of the current practices in the field and provides some examples of “good” and “not-so-good” online options.  It is hoped that the review of these examples will result in similar inquiries in the future and as these “not-so-good” options are exposed more, they will eventually be replaced with the “good” ones.