Patients researching on Google
Diabetes - A case study
Let’s consider Diabetes condition for our easy understanding. We shall get the keyword report from Google’s tool to understand how the general public behaves on the internet to fetch the information. Basically, Google gives us the number of people searching for these keywords in a set Geography. It can be across the Globe, India or within India, a region or the major cities
The below graphs shows the search results within India and the numbers against the major states of India. It also implies there is a large number of patients looking for the right information to suffice them. Maybe they are not getting this information from their treating doctors.
As shown in the map, the region with 100 scoring indicates that the state has the maximum searches and compared to the state with 100 score, other states are ranked in % to the one sate.
Google has identified related keywords searches and their average trend across the country. This implies that more and more people are researching all possible related keywords to get the right information.
As a doctor, what is that you need to understand from this trend?
As more and more people use the internet, it is easy for them to scout for information on health for their own benefit. If you do not provide the right information, they will seek information from Google. Google is trying hard to set algorithms to fetch the right information from the ocean of websites and in the process, some website may not provide authenticate information or the right source. In the end, the patients are confused. A confused patient if visits you, can even give negative feedback on google that will hamper the doctors especially those practising privately.
It is advisable for doctors to slowly start creating a genuine and authenticate contents, or license contents at least for their patients so your time is optimally utilised when they come for consultation.
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