Connect with Physicians More Effectively
Sources & Interactions
Ready to optimize your strategy and connect with physicians more effectively?
The Sources & Interactions Study is the market’s most comprehensive assessment of how physicians engage with both digital and offline information sources. It delivers in-depth insights into their behaviors, preferences, and the channels that influence their decisions — empowering you to build more impactful marketing and communications campaigns.
What You’ll Gain from the Study
A complete view of physicians’ information habits
- Explore how doctors use and value more than 35 information sources — from sales reps and company websites, to colleagues, conferences, journals, online portals, EHRs, social media, email and more.
- Gain a clear picture of physicians' attitudes toward online and social media, videos, and podcasts, their perceptions and actions tied to advertising and sponsorship, and how they're using AI in their practice.
- Learn which communication channels they prefer, the type of content they seek, the time they spend with medical content, and their internet and mobile activity.
- Independent, third-party data you can trust— while information about marketing channels and physician engagement is widely available from media platforms, marketing service providers or self-proclaimed experts, it is often presented through their own lens. Our data reflects the physician’s perspective, with no agenda other than delivering accurate, objective insights to inform your strategy.
A Robust Sample for Actionable Insights
Responses from 3,400+ U.S. physicians across 25+ medical specialties
- Data is collected via an annual online survey of active physicians and weighted to represent the universe of each specialty and in aggregate.
- Enriched with dozens of profiling variables such as prescribing and diagnosis data, KOL status, sales rep access, treatment decision drivers, practice type, gender, age and more — our data enables you to fine-tune your analysis to your specific target audiences.
- Historical data available to track shifts in usage and preferences among sources.
Study Content Overview
Physician & Practice Profiling
Demographics
- Age & gender
- Ethnicity & Hispanic/Latino/Spanish
- Language(s) spoken at home or with patients
- Residence area — urban, suburban, rural
Physician Specialty & Professional Profile
- Specialty, sub-specialty, hospitalist
- Association membership details & formulary committee membership
- Key Opinion Leader
- Purchase influence & professional activities
- Digital content creation (e.g., responding to medical questions on social media platforms) & intended audience
Practice Profile
- Type (Community Hospital/Health-System, Urgent Care Facility, etc.) & area of primary practice (urban/suburban/rural)
- Work within a center of excellence (COE) or specialty care center
- Year of practice
- Whether Physician Assistants/Associates (PAs) or Nurse Practitioners (NPs) are on staff & how they are most valuable to their practice (e.g., freeing time to focus on more complex cases)
Patient Profile
- Number of patients seen in average week & average length of visit
- Percent of patients that speak something besides English as their primary language
- Rare Disease: percent of patients diagnosed with a rare disease, types encountered, activities performed for those patients
Colleagues & Career
- Frequency consulted by other physicians about treatment options
- Specific physician review sites used & activities performed on them
- How medical news/developments are shared with colleagues
- Attitudes about their career, practice & healthcare landscape
Prescribing & Treatment
Prescribing & Treatment Profile
- Number of prescriptions written in average week
- New drug/device adoption
- Percent of patients recommended OTC products/treatments
- Attitudes about drugs, vaccines & treatments (e.g., GLP-1s)
Treatment Behaviors
- Factors influencing prescribing/treatment decisions: treatment-related considerations (e.g., a generic is available), content found on social media (e.g., patient reviews/ testimonials), creators of impactful online videos (e.g., medical schools/universities)
- Preferred initial treatment type (invasiveness vs. efficacy) & treatment selection (rely more on personal experience vs. clinical studies/ guidelines)
- Prescribing behaviors: branded vs. generic propensity & patient out-of-pocket cost consideration
- Frequency encounter barriers to preferred treatment (e.g., coverage, availability, cost)
Prescribing, Diagnosis & Procedure Data
- Prescribing data: drug categories
- ICD-10 diagnosis
- CPT procedures & services
Information Sources, Channel Preference & Professional Email/Newsletters
Information Sources
- Importance of 35+ sources for staying informed about medical developments: conferences, CME, online/mobile (websites, apps, portals, social media), publications, sales reps, etc.
Preferred Information by Channel
- Types of information like to acquire (e.g., learning about new products, procedures, or innovations)
- Preferred channels for acquiring that information (e.g., sales reps, email newsletters, healthcare influencers)
Email newsletters & promotional/ marketing emails
- Number subscribed to & read in average week (for professional email newsletters) or average day (for professional marketing/promotional emails)
- Separate email for promotional/marketing emails & who monitors the account
Medical Content/Publications & Digital Advertising
Medical Content & Publications
- Time spent reading in a typical week & percent that is peer-reviewed
- Format & frequency of medical info accessed
- Importance of: print medical journals, medical journal websites, reference publications (print or digital)
- Most valuable format to learn about a new clinician update in 10-minutes (e.g., AI-generated summary of KOL-led panel discussion)
Digital Advertising
- Medical product/procedure/treatment advertising: where seen (e.g., medical-related podcasts, journal websites) & whether found useful
- Actions taken after viewing ads via each general format: print, digital, event
- Noticed physician-targeted ads while browsing non-professional websites
- Views on targeted content/ads (beneficial vs. intrusive) by location
- Text messages targeting them as a healthcare provider/containing clinical content: frequency received & reaction (e.g., opt-out or avoidance)
Internet, Mobile & Social Media
Mobile Usage & Online Attitudes
- Number of smartphones, tablets, desktop/ laptop computers used regularly for only personal purposes vs. only work purposes vs. both
- Mobile apps: frequency of use & importance to their practice by type they have installed (e.g., Drug reference, EMR/EHR access)
- Attitudes about search & online resources
Social Media
- Use of professional & consumer social networks
- Primary reasons for engaging with professional/medical content on social media
- Factors found on social media that influence prescribing/treatment decisions (e.g., news and content sponsored by pharmaceutical companies)
- Actions taken after seeing medical/ professional social media content
- Types of KOLs or healthcare influencers followed & how their content is typically accessed
- Attitudes about social media
Online Video & Podcasts
Online Video
- Types watched & which video creators impact prescribing/treatment decisions the most
- Opinion on looking for a video vs. article when learning a new topic
Podcasts
- Medical-themed podcasts: frequency of listening (for professional purposes), number of different podcasts listened to regularly, types (e.g., business/practice-related, technology innovations)
- General podcasts: when listen for either professional or personal purposes (e.g., at the end of your workday) & platforms used
Health Technology, EMR/EHR/Telehealth & AI
Health Technology
- Current or future planned usage of: online test kits, digital tools for condition management, wearables for patient self-monitoring, remote monitoring of vitals, VR/AR for physician training
- Whether data from patients’ fitness trackers is useful in understanding their overall health
EMR/EHR & Telehealth
- Whether practice is primarily a telehealth company, percent of visits/consultations conducted via telemedicine, platform type or method used for these virtual consultations
- Specific EHR/EMR systems used in practice – 35+ options (e.g., athenahealth, Citrix, Epic)
- Actions taken while using EMR/EHR or telemedicine platforms
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- AI-powered activities (e.g., documentation, clinical support) used in their practice
- Reliance on AI tool’s clinical recommendation vs. own judgment
- How AI tools are accessed & how generative AI output/search summaries are verified
- Primary concerns regarding AI in their practice
- Attitudes about AI
Patient-Provider Interactions & Education
Patient-Provider Interactions & Drug Discount Programs
- Number of patients seen (avg. week), length of average visit, percent of current visits/ consultations conducted via telemedicine
- Percent of patients recommended OTC products
- Activities engaged in with rare disease patients (e.g., referred to specialist)
- Most influential provider attributes when making patient referral decisions (e.g., network & insurance)
- Percent of patients paying for their healthcare via insurance type
- Whether drug discount information is provided to patients & types of programs offered
Patient/Provider Education & Role of Pharma
- Disease maintenance information/education: percent of patients receiving, when provided, party responsible for delivering to patients, involvement in decisions about available materials
- Attitudes about pharma’s role in patient education/supply of materials
- Best format for pharma-sponsored materials shared with patients (e.g., “product-neutral”/unbranded) & reasons for preferring unbranded materials
- Patient and provider education: types, where available (e.g., educational signage in waiting room) & the value of each in supporting patient care and practice efficiency
Physician Education & Sales Reps
Meetings/ Conferences & Continuing Education
- Number of meetings (in-person or virtual) attended by type in the past year
- Activities like to take part in when attending conferences or conventions & actions taken after most recent attended
- Learning about new products/procedures equally via virtual or in-person methods
- Preferred format for industry meeting coverage
- Digital CME formats used in past year
Sales Reps & Product Education Tools
- Policy towards sales rep visits by type (pharmaceutical vs. device sales reps) & frequency for each
- Limit on number of meetings allowed — self-set, employer-set, no limit
- Attitudes about sales reps
- Exposure to & effectiveness of product education tools/techniques introduced by a sales rep (last 6 months)
Global perspective and other healthcare professionals
- S&I International Study — in addition to the annual core U.S. study, the international edition alternates yearly between coverage of Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK) and APAC (China and Japan).
- Additional Sources & Interactions studies cover other key healthcare professional audiences including PAs/NPs, pharmacists, managed care professionals, oncology nurses and more. Click for more details.
More than 300 health marketing and media professionals rely on M3 MI’s Sources & Interactions data to guide their strategy and planning.