- EPG Health Media launches latest version of epgonline.org
- Independent website aimed at healthcare professionals, providing access to trusted medical content
- Comes as global survey reveals medical professionals are using online information more frequently than ever before
- 50% of respondents called for better access to vital medical content online
EPG Health Media today announced the launch of the latest version of epgonline.org, its independent website for healthcare professionals.
Drawing on the company’s considerable experience and recent indepth research with users and industry partners, epgonline.org now provides even-more-personalised and intuitive access to trusted medical content.
Available globally and in multiple languages, this content is provided free from advertising – accessed where, when, and how it is required by today’s time-pressed, digitally-savvy medical professionals.
This enables them to make the most-effective use of their time and by doing so, supports them in delivering better patient outcomes.
Launched in 2002, epgonline.org now has more than 130,000 pages of independently-curated medical content indexed by Google and is currently used as a go-to medical information resource by specialists and doctors in almost 200 countries.
Independent research in 2015 comprising a global survey of 216 such professionals highlighted a number of their key concerns and requirements when it came to accessing medical content. One of the most-significant findings was that while 80% of healthcare professionals trusted and valued information from independent medical websites, 35% attributed limited or no value to education websites owned by pharmaceutical companies. Independent web resources are also accessed more frequently than government, institutional, society or pharmaceutical website, with 58% of respondents doing so at least once a week.
We know that doctors and other healthcare professionals have difficulty balancing the pressures of work with the essential processes of staying up to date with the latest medical knowledge and opinion
With regard to the type of content medical professionals are interested in, the most frequently accessed were drug data, journal articles, and treatment guidelines and strategies, with over half of respondents doing so at least once a week.
However, more than 50% reported the need for better access to the above.
While lack of time was cited as the main obstacle to accessing medical content in general, other barriers lay in where, when, and how data could be accessed.
Features considered important by over 75% of the healthcare professionals surveyed were that medical websites should have content arranged and searchable by disease and specialty, the ability to save content to read later, as well as the facility to rate and comment on content. Furthermore, with 66% of respondents accessing medical content daily via mobile devices and in their own time, there was a clear requirement for web resources to be mobile responsive.
Dr Toby Galbraith, director of content strategy for epgonline.org, said of the new version: “We know that doctors and other healthcare professionals have difficulty balancing the pressures of work with the essential processes of staying up to date with the latest medical knowledge and opinion.
“Since its inception, epgonline.org has been designed to be free, easily accessible and deeply interconnected, so that our audience can find the information they need quickly, and continue their learning with related and relevant resources.
“Our independence and agility, combined with innovative technology and a thorough understanding of medical education, means we are best placed to develop the new features and learning mechanisms required to enable healthcare professionals to make the most-effective use of their time.”