Healthy Skepticism Library item: 16805

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

New online qualitative research
PM Live 2009 Oct 20
http://www.pmlive.com/find_an_article/allarticles/categories/pr_and_med_ed/2009/october/news/new_online_qualitative_research

Full text:

A new online market research service for pharmaceutical marketers, including real-time interactive probing of medical professionals, group discussions and the ability to show visuals or videos, has been launched by Doctors.net.uk.

The qualitative service from medeConnect Healthcare Insight, the market research division of Doctors.net.uk, has many advantages over the traditional focus group approach including quick turnaround times and cost effectiveness.

While medeConnect is renowned for its quantitative online research of medical professionals, this qualitative service has been developed in response to the growing challenge of obtaining detailed information from hard-to-reach, geographically diverse and increasingly time-constrained clinicians.

Carwyn Jones, head of pharma at Doctors.net.uk, said: “Clinicians are at the forefront of driving improvements in patient care, and gaining the best possible understanding of their opinions and the issues they face is critical. This new research tool will support the pharmaceutical industry in achieving change and driving forward new initiatives. It will also enable better measurement of the success of existing campaigns or programmes of activity.

“Our ability to target by specialty, geography and seniority enables us to explore specific issues in an efficient and effective way. Thanks to medeConnect’s technology and the strong relationship we have with the 50,000 doctors a week who use the Doctors.net.uk network, it’s also far less time-consuming and labour intensive than traditional research methods.”

Iain Findlay, managing director of medeConnect, added: “Given there are no geographical or time limitations to whom we can survey, we can secure the participation of doctors who would not take part in traditional research due to their distance from a central research location or time restrictions. As a result we can reach a wider and fresher sample of medical professionals and delve deeper into issues regarding patient care.”