Healthcare and Blogs

While reading the class required blogs, I came across a blog post on Diva Marketing with an interesting subject. The article entitled Taking the Pulse of Healthcare Social Media Marketing discusses blogs covering healthcare information. This is one aspect of blogging which I have never considered. Clearly, the internet has provided consumers with more information than they know what to do with. This is generally a great thing as the more information we have at our fingertips, the better. When considering health, the internet has been both good and bad. People are more informed, and are able to find specialized information It has also allowed some to falsely believe that they are doctors. Reading an article about a particular illness or disease on WebMD does not provide enough information to diagnose and treat that illness or disease. This cases some people to not seek real medical healthcare. In other cases, people see prescription drug-related information on the internet (or television ads) and go to their doctor asking for an unneeded medicine. The internet does not replace live doctors.

The Diva Marketing Blog, however, presents another issue: health information taken from blogs. The article suggests that when looking for health information online consumers look for information with a "personal touch." A personal touch is exactly what blogs provide. According to the article, consumers are also put off by advertising (making them turn away from drug company web sites). The people behind the blogs, however, are not always impartial. No source of health information (blogs, government sites, or general sites) are impartial. People need to weigh all information taking into account where the information is coming from. The internet certainly allows for many outlooks on any given topic. Health related blogs will provide yet another outlook when it comes to health related issues. Hopefully, people will not substitute the personal touch offered by blogs for the personal touch offered by doctors.