American Doctors say Practice altered by Internet

Almost half of physicians report that the Web has had a major impact on the way they practice medicine, according to a new study by the American Medical Association (AMA). The rising influence of the internet on clinical medicine has propelled an increase in the frequency and duration of Web use among the 78% of physicians who now make use of cyberspace.

These new findings come from the 2002 AMA Study on Physicians’ Use of the Web, which interviewed a total of 977 physicians in the United States from August to December 2001. The newly released survey is the fourth analysis of nationwide patterns of online physicians conducted by the AMA. The top-line findings of the new survey reveal the following trends in physician Web use:

* Physician use of the Web is becoming more frequent. Two-thirds of online physicians access the Web daily, an increase of 24% since 1997.

* Physicians who use the Web have extended the hours they spend online. The average number of hours a physician uses the Web per week jumped from 4.3 in 1997 to 7.1 in 2001.

* Additional growth can be expected in the number of hours spent on the Web, with physicians indicating they expect to use the Internet an average of 9.6 hours per week during the next 6 months.

* Although there is still a trend for younger physicians to use the Web more than older physicians, the percentage of older physicians using the Web increased rapidly from the previous year. In 2001, 65% of physicians 60 years of age or older used the Web, compared with 43% in 2000.

* Approximately 3 of 10 physicians using the internet currently have a Web site, a proportion that has remained constant since 1999.

The sample of physicians interviewed for the 2002 AMA Study on Physicians’ Use of the World Wide Web was selected randomly from the AMA’s Physician Masterfile, a comprehensive database of information on all physicians in the United States including members and nonmembers of the AMA. Physicians who were employed by the federal government, 70 years of age or older, or in residency training were excluded from participating in the AMA survey.

Associated Link: American Medical Association

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