How Crowdsourcing Is Maximizing the Impact of Medical Research

Don’t Pay Experts. Don’t offer to pay physicians for their responses. Dr. Sidell said he responds to about 95% of the surveys that are in his area of expertise and don’t offer him financial compensation for taking them. Paid consulting, he said, could put him in a situation where he is (or appears to be) in conflict with the interest of a future study or research presentation. “I don’t think the reimbursement is worth any of that, quite frankly,” he said.

Pick the Right Platform: If you’re crowdsourcing patients in their 20s, they may be less likely to use Facebook and more likely to use Snapchat or WhatsApp. Older patients may prefer to be surveyed by email.