Healthcare marketing on the web: moving forward toward more interactive practices.
It is hard to deny the notion that the Internet has been very efficient in distributing health information to millions of individuals and has become one of the best marketing tools in healthcare. We have been witnessing so many very creative and interactive practices in this field that we can safely assume that it is now the time for e-commerce in healthcare industry. While this is true for many participants, there are also some who are concerned about using some of these new online options in the field of healthcare. Most of these concerns are derived from the questionable accuracy of the "health" information on the net. Considering the fact that the subject matter of the field is "health" we can realize that these concerns are serious and deserve an in-depth look. This paper reviews some of the most current practices in the field and provides some examples of these online options. It is hoped that the review of these examples will result in similar inquiries in the future and as those questionable options are exposed more and more, they will eventually be eliminated and replaced with the better ones.
Erdem
S
S
Department of Marketing, University of Houston-Clear Lake, Houston, TX 77058, USA. erdem@cl.uh.edu
D054626:Consumer Health Information / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008389:Marketing of Health Services / Q000379:methods*; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations