A recent analysis of website traffic across multiple medical specialties shows steady growth in mobile traffic across the board.
In April, 2013, Practis, LLC conducted an analysis of website traffic, comparing traffic from 2011 to 2012. What we found demonstrated that, across the board, by medical specialty there was an average increase in the amount of mobile traffic of 10-15% . The most significant growth in mobile traffic was seen in Pediatrics, OBGYN and ENT. Mobile devices include both smart phones as well as tablets.
For 2012, the average percentage of mobile traffic out of overall website traffic was:
| Specialty | % of Mobile Traffic |
| Pediatrics | 32% |
| Ophthalmology | 25% |
| OBGYN | 24% |
| ENT | 22% |
| Primary Care | 20% |
| Orthopedics | 19% |
| Cardiology | 16% |
| Surgical | 16% |
| Urology | 13% |
| Radiology | 13% |
| Gastroenterology | 12% |
Also from those surveyed, hospital websites saw roughly 16% of their traffic coming from mobile devices.
What this means
This is the start of what is yet to come. It is expected that mobile traffic will continue to grow 13-fold by the year 2017 and that traffic will come from multiple devices including smartphones, tablets and soon to be TVs.
Going forward, your website will need to be device agnostic. In other words, your site should not dependent on knowing what device it is being displayed on as that can be many. It is equally important to understand that the content displayed on your website should also adapt to the device and offer the tasks the user is most likely looking to perform on that device.
Bottom line – your patients want to view your website on one of their many devices and they expect that it will look and function similarly on each. Since your website is a virtual extension of your practice, isn’t time to make your website just as accessible as you?
Learn more about Practis Mobile Websites