Why sex and money are not as popular as health
I recently put the word “health” into the Google search engine. The search returned 1.32 billion web pages where the word “health” was mentioned. I really mean the number 1,320,000,000, more than 1.3 billion mentions. I continued with other words. “Money” found 1.2 billion pages and “sex” found 819 million. What an astonishing statement about the popularity of health on the net: more mentions than sex and money! And reference numbers that are in the billions. When I did this same search in 2000, there were 27 million references to “health”, so this is a more than forty-fold increase in the last 8 years. What an expansion of interest in health on the Internet.
The eHealth business on the Internet is expanding rapidly. Two recent reports from the Pew Foundation and Harris Interactive have confirmed that between 75 and 80 percent of Internet users in the United States use the Internet to obtain information about health and medical care, that is, about 140 million people. . This is more than 65% of the entire adult population of the US, an average of 8 million people every day! Not surprisingly, people with chronic illnesses, those recently diagnosed with a medical condition, or those with broadband Internet connections use the Internet for healthcare more frequently than other Internet users, and their search for health information are becoming a regular habit, often multiple times. per month.
Businesses see the healthcare sector as a particularly attractive industry that will benefit from web-based technologies due to its sheer size, inefficiency, and information intensity. In addition, the healthcare industry is particularly fragmented with a large number of participants, including general practitioners and primary care physicians, specialists, institutions (public and private hospitals and diagnostic companies), health funds, pharmaceutical companies, retail pharmacies and Of course, patients. .
John Chambers of Cisco Systems has been quoted many times as saying that “the Internet waits for no one,” and now that we have the rise of what is called the second Internet revolution, with the influence of social media and sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, the importance of the Internet has increased dramatically as it has entered the social fabric of our lives. We know that it took radio 30 years and television 15 years to build an audience of 60 million people worldwide. The Web gained 90 million people in its first three years and hasn’t looked back, so there are now more than 1.5 billion Internet users worldwide – 23% of the world’s total population.
Countries like China and regions like South America and the Indian subcontinent, with their large populations and economic bases, are becoming major powers in the world of the Internet. I visited India in 2003 and while driving on the main road from Agra to Delhi I was shocked to see broadband fiber being laid in hand dug trenches alongside the road and was told by my driver that this was now commonly seen Like all of India. being wired quickly.
Many forces are allowing the practice of Internet health care to advance rapidly, including the following:
1. Consumers are spending more of their own income on health, with the cost estimated to increase by 2.5% to 3.5% per year as the population ages.
2. Consumers are encouraged to take more responsibility for their health and learn more about the treatments offered to them, their effectiveness, and the history of the individual provider or medical team offering the treatment.
3. It is well known that conventional health services are associated with many unwanted injuries or complications, and government task forces in the United States, Europe and Australia have strongly recommended a greater involvement of information technology in the system healthcare to reduce mistakes and errors.
4. Today’s healthcare professionals have a high level of computer literacy and today’s medical students have grown up in a world where they have never known life without the Internet. Many doctors have their own home pages, and the culture of healthcare is changing. It is now well understood by both patients and physicians that patients can further their care by accessing good quality information.
5. The spread and increased access to fast Internet connections via broadband has made the entire Internet much more accessible than when most people dialed up. It is now a major force in our daily lives.
6. Major publishers have built major online healthcare programs, and Google and Microsoft have recently entered the healthcare industry with a bang, focusing on creating personal health records for patients and working with premier healthcare organizations. level, such as the Cleveland Clinic.
The presence of “health” on the Internet, as one of the most popular and generic search terms used on Google, is massive. It’s easy to see why this term is more popular than “sex” or “money” when you examine all the forces driving healthcare on the Internet. The challenge for consumers is sorting through good quality information from biased and inaccurate sources.