Opinion: Evaluating the Value of Expert Network Size

Why consulting teams must look beyond raw expert network size and focus on quality to protect survey feasibility, data integrity, and project outcomes.

• Putting size in perspective helps protect timelines, budgets, and client outcomes.

• True reliability comes from verified, profiled, and engaged participants. 

• Consultants can pressure-test feasibility by asking sharper, evidence-based questions.

The Appeal of Network Size

“We have millions of healthcare professionals." 

When evaluating providers, consulting teams are often presented with massive figures as proof of reach, feasibility, and speed. On the surface, those numbers feel reassuring. After all, more people should mean more respondents, right?

In practice, raw size doesn’t guarantee reliability. A network is only as strong as the activity, profiling, and engagement of its members. Without those elements, scale becomes a distraction that hides deeper risks.

The Risks Hidden in Big Numbers

Over the years, I’ve seen cases where large networks struggled at the very moments when precision was most important. A survey built for a narrow, highly specific healthcare audience isn’t always solved by adding more participants.

Consultants and advisory teams should be thoughtful and critical, especially when “millions” are used as a shorthand for feasibility.

Dropouts, low qualification rates, and irrelevant audiences slipping through screeners are all risks that can surface without proper profiling and engagement. By asking sharper questions up front, consultants can separate inflated claims from grounded delivery and safeguard the integrity of their outcomes.

The Questions Consultants Should Be Asking

This is why consulting teams benefit from moving past “network size” as a headline metric. A better approach is to reverse-engineer feasibility by asking providers the questions that reveal true depth and readiness:

• How many completed surveys can be delivered at the requested specification?

• What qualification rate is assumed, and what evidence supports it?

• What contingencies exist if qualification rates are lower than expected?

• How are audiences targeted and validated before fielding begins?

These questions shift the conversation away from big-picture claims and toward practical, accountable delivery.

Why It Matters

In healthcare market research, feasibility isn’t theoretical. It has real implications for costs, timelines, and the strength of recommendations. Even a few days lost chasing the wrong respondents can slow momentum and create avoidable stress in project delivery.

Consultants succeed when insights are clear, defensible, and delivered with speed. Protecting that standard means viewing “millions in a database” as a starting point for questions, not as proof of feasibility.

The Power of Precision

At Medical Mile Research, we’ve built our network specifically with consulting and advisory teams in mind. For us, success comes from the power of precision: every healthcare professional in our community is verified, profiled, and engaged before participating in research.

This precision-first model avoids the pitfalls of oversized but shallow networks and ensures that feasibility forecasts hold true in practice. It means consultants can count on more predictable outcomes: higher qualification rates, stronger data integrity, and fewer surprises in fieldwork.

When the right participants are aligned to the right projects, insights become clearer, more reliable, and far more valuable to client decision-making. That is the foundation we aim to deliver on every engagement.

Final Thought

The takeaway is that feasibility should be evaluated with the right lens. Numbers should spark sharper questions, not settle them. By asking those questions, consulting teams put themselves in the best position to protect timelines, budgets, and outcomes - while ensuring insights come from the right voices.

Robert Warpas

Medical Mile Research