Where do doctors go when they go online for work-related info and chatter? A new survey finds that 66 percent are using what is known in social media parlance as professional user-generated content - which are, essentially, web sites such as blogs and open message boards that specialize in physician-to-physician communications.

To be specific, the traffic reached 66 percent, up from 53 percent two years ago. But only 16 percent have visited ‘closed’ online communities for docs, and that’s up from 7 percent in 2008, according to Manhattan Research, which surveyed 2,033 practicing physicians in the US earlier this year. In other words, more docs continue to be more willing to visit public forums for info. What’s a closed online community, though? An example is Sermo, which is only for docs, who use the site to compare notes about any number of things.

As a recent essay about social media and healthcare in The New England Journal of Medicine noted, social media is becoming more pervasive among physicians. Sermo and other such sites, including iMedExchange and Ozmosis, have attracted tens of thousands of members or participants. Liability and patient privacy concerns, however, continue to keep docs from using most public forums, although one such site, Medpedia, is open to patients and caregivers.