MarketIntellNow®

Covering Self-Testing & Monitoring-- watch this space in 2010

2009-12-30T10:03:00.004-05:00

This is a graphic regarding DirectLife from Philips.

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Interview with RememberItNow

2009-12-10T11:00:00.006-05:00

RememberItNow! (Orinda, CA) "makes eHealth easy. Designed from the patient's point-of-view, it is simple to schedule medication reminders, maintain a personal health record, and create a care community."

Here we interview CEO Pam Swingley--

Why did you start RememberItNow?

I started RememberItNow! because I wanted to help my dad. He was forgetting his pills, he couldn't remember if he put in his eye drops. And it was a pain to dig for all his phone numbers, passwords, and more for health insurance, doctor appointments, etc. Every time. Not to mention, I had to update my siblings or whoever else helping out. If one of us had to switch places to take care of him, we had to start the whole search all over again. I started to worry a lot too when he forgot his pills. After searching for a long time on the web for something that could manage his health, and not finding results...I figured, 'Why can't I make this?' And that's where it all started.

How did you make the switch from marketing to software development?

Making the switch was easier than I expected. As an internet marketing consultant I've been working for several years with a core team of people to build corporate websites. An effective website is the work of a team of people. One person will do the strategy. A graphic designer creates the look and feel. A writer creates the content. An engineer makes the forms work, builds a content engine, creates flash elements, and often builds mini applications. The production manager puts all the pieces together and builds the site. The entire team usually does a quality check making sure everything works before the launch. And lastly, a search engine optimization expert works on driving traffic to the website.

The process was the same to build RememberItNow!, it just took longer. Since we have all worked together before, things went pretty well. Our designer created more than 160 page comps to clearly articulate what was to be built. Because of this attention to detail at the beginning, the final application was exactly what was requested.

Patient-centric is the buzz word of the moment, what does it mean to you?

One of the common problems with software design is that the developers assume that every user is as tech savvy as they are. That is very far from the truth. Most computer users want to get their task done as quick as possible and go on to things they enjoy. Software built from an engineering perspective is rarely user-centric.

For us patient-centric means that every decision is made from the patient's point of view. It may not always be feasible to implement, but we always consider the user's needs first.

Before we wrote a single line of code, we built detailed personas for each user. These fictional characters included a background on illnesses and medication schedules, activities, attitudes toward technology, age, family relationships, attitudes, where they lived, and what they read.

To build accurate personas we interviewed a variety of people who took multiple medications, and people who served as caregivers to a loved one. Karen, and her mother Carol, became our model for long-distance caregiving. Persona Janelle was a single, middle-aged interior decorator diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. Persona Manual is a much loved grandfather with several chronic diseases. He sees multiple doctors, and is cared for at home by his wife, with relief help from family and friends.

As we designed the application we considered how each of our personas would respond. Would they know the account section was under their user name? Were two links too close together for someone that wasn't comfortable with a mouse? How many features are too many? What colors are least intimidating? What action on each page is most important? What matters most to the patient? To the caregiver? To the healthcare professional?

By starting from the patient's point-of-view, we ended up with an application that is truly patient-centric.

The principles of patient-centric extend to how we've structured the business. We went with Software as a Service, (SaaS). You pay as you go, and no downloads. No contracts, no hidden fees, no constant upgrades. The first month is free too, and if you feel like you don't need RememberItNow! anymore, then it can be canceled.

I noticed RememberItNow! has a simple and fun design, explain how you got there.

I worked in the business software industry for over twenty-five years. Business software is not easy to use. So when it came time for me to create RememberItNow! I wanted it to be the opposite of everything I hated. I wanted my software to be easy for anyone to use. If you have to train someone to use it, it's pointless. And frankly, if I'm going to spend a year of my life working on something, I wanted it to be nice to look at.

Give us an example of why it's so easy to use.

The "Medications" page is a good place to start. Adding a medication couldn't be easier. Just click on the big orange button that says, 'Add a medication'. Boom. There it is. No fancy icons or logos where you have to guess what something means and what it does. RememberItNow! is easier because our functions are labeled and every page has a clear call to action. Another example is the journal. You simply type an entry and click the orange plus button. Or click on the orange stars to add an entry for your wellness. It's a little bit fun too. If you're going to use something everyday, you might as well enjoy it right? Even our elephant is happy.

How did you stick with this though? Most companies seem to get off track and start listening to their investors.

Well right now we don't have any investors. We've bootstrapped the company. When the time comes to raise funds, we will look for investors that share our same values. We wrote our core values within the first three months of starting RememberItNow!.They are designed to guide us in who we hire and partner with.

> Be understanding and responsive to our customer’s challenges - Our first responsibility is to listen to our customers, and respond to their needs. By building better products and providing customer service, we can help them get the most from their investment. This value ties directly into our patient-centric philosophy. Our market success will come from taking care of our customers.

> Deliver value by doing more with fewer resources - It’s never been cheaper or faster to build software than right now. Agile software development, virtual teams, hard work, and adoption of the latest business tools (mostly free, thanks to Google) are a few of the ways we keep our expenses down.

We do everything with such a small team, that nothing gets neglected; and communication is easier. Things get done faster. Plain and simple. There is no need to go through a whole chain of people to get the approval of something small. We've had one meeting in the entire year.

> Build open and honest relationships. - It’s not a big mystery who we are. We strive for transparency in our communications. We value feedback from all. You can follow our story on our blog, Facebook, on Twitter, or send us your thoughts (support(at)rememberitnow(dot)com. As for the honesty part of this value statement, that shouldn’t require any explanation.

> Create quality and take pride in our work. - We believe that if something is worth doing, it is worth doing well. We work hard to create things we like to use, and are proud to show off. We expect everyone to do their best, and to be accountable for their actions.

> Make things easier, and be easy to work with. - For most people, technology adds complexity to their lives. Our job is to build software that makes things easier not harder. And while we are doing that, we want to be easy to work with. This doesn’t mean we say yes all the time, or that we let others take advantage of us. It means that we respect one another. We help others reach their goals and we don’t hide behind email or voicemail, or pass our responsibilities off to someone else.

> Bring passion and a positive attitude to all we do. - No naysayers here. Enthusiasm is contagious, and we only accept optimism. It’s an exciting time to be in business as the Internet reshapes how we build, market and deliver software. We’re fortunate to be able to participate in the Health 2.0 revolution. And we are thrilled to empower patients to reach their own health goals.

> Embrace creativity, innovation and change. - The healthcare industry is not known for rapid change, but RememberItNow! is. We believe it is better to move quickly and risk a mistake than to dawdle and miss an opportunity. We have a bias toward action.

It sounds like you have built a small niche for yourself, any learning milestones so far?

One of the things we have learned is that we underestimated the opportunity for eHealth services. It's not a small niche. Twenty-seven percent of the people in the United States take five or more medications a week, and almost every one of these people finds it a challenge to manage their health care. Nearly 50% of the time medications are not taken as they were prescribed.

In addition, this market is rapidly expanding as 77 million baby boomers enter their senior years. their senior years. We've realized that the value of RememberItNow! isn't just medication reminders, it's so much more. It's a way for employers to control healthcare costs. For long-term care facilities to manage resident records. For patients to take control of their health. And for healthcare providers to provide better care. It's eHealth made easy.

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Zeo for Sleep

2009-12-07T10:37:00.002-05:00

Take a look at Zeo™, the Personal Sleep Coach. Created with leading sleep scientists, Zeo is a new kind of educational tool and motivational program that helps you understand how you are sleeping, reveals habits and behaviors that may be helping or hindering your sleep, and teaches new ways that may help you get a better night's rest. Competes with WakeMate.

See review here from Newsweek.

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Funding for Health Research

2009-11-25T10:50:00.004-05:00

Extraordinarily helpful site: ScanGrants.

As of today: "934 funding opportunities are listed on ScanGrants.com."

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GoodGuide's Bar Code Scanner

2009-11-19T13:05:00.002-05:00

GoodGuide's description:
What chemicals are in your baby shampoo?
Was sweatshop labor used to make your t-shirt?
What products are the best, and what products should you avoid?

Increasingly, you want to know about the impacts of the products you buy. On your health. On the environment. On society. But unless you’ve got a Ph.D, it is almost impossible to find out the impacts of the products you buy. Until now…

GoodGuide provides the world's largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of the products in your home.

GoodGuide has released the first iPhone app that lets you scan bar codes for what they call "impartial" health, environmental, and social responsibility ratings of not only the products you are scanning but their companies, too.

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Track Your Weight with Withings

2009-11-11T15:08:00.003-05:00

The French company Withings has rolled out the first WiFi scale linked to the internet that automatically registers weight, fat and BMI calculation.

Their 9/30/2009 press release is here. They have an iPhone app, too.

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Keas

2009-11-05T10:19:00.004-05:00

San Francisco-based Keas bears watching, as the founder is ex-Google Health.

Here's what they say they're doing:

Keas' mission is simple: To help you understand what your health data means and how you can use it to be as healthy as possible.

How a Keas Care Plan Can Help You

Keas Care Plans are designed to help shed some light on a specific health and wellness issue, but they come in all shapes and sizes. Some contain information on how you can manage or improve a condition; others might use quizzes or ask you for lab results to deliver personalized content and action items to help you improve your health. Many plans take into account your health conditions, family history, and other information in your Health Profile to figure out the next steps toward your health goals.

Providing Care Plans for Everyone

We offer different plans for all kinds of people. Whether you're managing diabetes, trying to lose weight, or working on lowering your cholesterol, Keas can help. Most importantly, by working with medical professionals and other health experts, we're adding new plans all the time. Once you're logged on, go to the All Care Plans page to see how we can help you take charge of your health.

Using Lab Results to Get You "In the Green"

Interpreting lab results is often tricky. Our experts not only explain the results, but they present them in a clear and easy way for you to see how they fit into your life. We use three colors: green, yellow, and red to label your results. If your lab result is green, that's great—you're in the healthy range. If it's yellow or red, we'll tell you what you need to do to get it in the green.

Sometimes, your lab results may signal that one of your plans should change. As our understanding of your health situation evolves, your plans will be updated to make sure the feedback your receive is timely, accurate, and personalized.

Personal and Private

Keas Care Plans work because they take into account your personal information (age, gender, location) and your health information (weight, medical history, lab test results). Because of this, we take the issue of privacy very seriously.

Keas won't ever share your personal health information with third parties unless you explicitly tell us to do so, or in the unusual circumstance where we are required to do so by law. In addition, Keas uses state-of-the art security to keep your information safe. Finally, you're fully in control of what information you share on our site and what information you keep private.

Keas appears to be following an iTunes model of sorts. The firm currently has partnerships with Microsoft HealthVault and Quest Diagnostics (blood testing lab) to import medical records into the Keas system, with patient and healthcare provider permission.

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Now over 1,000 Health & Fitness iPhone Apps

2009-10-29T09:26:00.006-04:00

Currently there are over 1,000-- 1,021 to be exact-- "Health & Fitness" apps for the iPhone.

Wow.

Example: iClimb.

iClimb is the premier climbing workout tracking tool. You can record all of your climbing workouts, then graph the results to analyze your progress and help you to tailor your next workouts to continue to improve your fitness level.

iClimb lets you create a new workout for each climbing session you do, and then graph your results.

You can add notes for you workout session, set the date and location, record the climb grade and your results whether you red-pointed it, flashed it, or did not complete it. Using the charting tools you can see your current climbing pyramid and graph your overall workout output.

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HealthGuru Gets a "C" Round

2009-10-21T11:17:00.003-04:00

NYC-based HealthGuru just closed a Series C round of financing with Castile Ventures, which is investing $3.2 million along with existing investor Village Ventures.

The company targets 18-40 year olds.

HealthGuru's content library is stocked with about 1,000 short-form videos covering 75 health conditions, and they're logging about two million unique visitors per month.

The firm is the #1 health video destination site with the biggest reach in its category on third-party networks such as YouTube.

HealthGuru has various verticals already, and will deploy the new capital primarily for the expansion of its channels for traffic acquisition and to ramp up monetization efforts (read: advertising).

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DSHI & Everyday Health

2009-10-12T14:25:00.003-04:00

Big win for Rockledge, Florida-based DSHI Systems (the folks behind www.freemd.com):

Everyday Health, the leading online health information property with more than 29 million unique users per month, today announced the launch of the Everyday Health Symptom Checker, a first of its kind interactive video symptom triage tool. The tool, created by a team of emergency room physicians, interviews online users about their risk for certain conditions and provides recommendations based on the answers provided. The symptom checker uses a revolutionary technology that analyzes more than 3,000 symptoms across all conditions and age groups.

Full press release is here.

The Symptom Checker is a decision support system that is in use with the VA, whereby trained operators help veterans determine how severe symptoms are, where they should go first, and what people there will do.

The software underlying both the VA and the new EverydayHealth applications is called Triage Expert.

The EverydayHealth service is free, and DSHI earns licensing fees based partly on traffic.

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Patients Know Best

2009-10-06T11:42:00.001-04:00

From the U.K.--

Patients Know Best (PKB) is the first company to integrate into the NHS Connecting for Health network to offer secure tools for patients to work with clinicians.

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Quest ePrescribing Offer: Risk Free for 6 Months

2009-09-28T09:08:00.007-04:00

Quest Diagnostics has stepped out to empower U.S. physicians to embrace ePrescribing.

The Madison, NJ company has a powerful offering called Care360, and they're letting docs use it risk free for six months.

For physicians currently using the Care360 Labs & Meds service, the company will activate the Care360 ePrescribing service for six months, risk free, enabling them to easily opt in and begin ePrescribing.

The company is extending the same opportunity to any doctor in the USA interested in trying ePrescribing in their practice without obligation. The offer is available to physicians who begin use of the Care360 ePrescribing service before December 18, 2009. Today, approximately 150,000, or more than 20%, of U.S. physicians are connected to Quest Diagnostics Care360 solutions.

Full press release is here.

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HealthCentral Network

2009-09-10T13:40:00.005-04:00

Arlington, VA-based The HealthCentral Network (THCN) has a lot of sites, witness--



	Condition-Specific Sites
	AcidRefluxConnection.com
	ADHDCentral.com
	MyAllergyNetwork.com
	OurAlzheimers.com
	AnxietyConnection.com
	MyAsthmaCentral.com
	BipolarConnect.com
	TheBody.com
	MyBreastCancerNetwork.com
	CholesterolNetwork.com
	ChronicPainConnection.com
	MyDepressionConnection.com
	MyDiabetesCentral.com
	DiabeTeens.com
	MyDietExercise.com
	ErectileDysfunctionConnection.com
	FoodFit.com
	FriendsOfQuinn.com
	HerpesConnection.com
	MyHeartCentral.com
	HighBloodPressureConnection.com
	MyIBDCentral.com
	IncontinenceNetwork.com
	MyMenopauseConnection.com
	MyMigraineConnection.com
	MultipleSclerosisCentral.com
	MyObesityConnection.com
	MyOsteoarthritisCentral.com
	OsteoporosisConnection.com
	ProstateCommons.com
	MyRACentral.com
	SexualHealthConnection.com
	SchizophreniaConnection.com
	MySleepCentral.com
	SkinCancerConnection.com
	MySkinCareConnection.com
	StopSmokingConnection.com

	General Health
	HealthCentral.com
	HealthScout.com
	HealthSquare.com
	Wellsphere.com

	Our Affiliates
	AllRefer Health
	Healthline
	Sexualhealth.com
	Diabetes Mine
	Excite
	Mendosa.com
	PAGER
	Ivanhoe
	WorldNow
	Drug Infonet
	Bell South
	USA Today
	Diabetes Monitor
	Healthopedia
	HelpForHeadaches
	McManWeb.com
	MedicalNewsToday.com
	MediLexicon.com

How are they doing, looking at just their healthcentral.com domain?

The answer is: Growing faster than the eHealth market.

They have an A-team for top management, and we expect THCN to accelerate especially in terms of ad monetization when the recession fades away.

Try their main site-- just got a CVS ReadyFill interstitial, clearly frequency-capped. Innovation in online ad units in eHealth is much needed....

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WebMD Down, Everyday Health Up

2009-09-04T16:43:00.008-04:00

WebMD's traffic has down-trended--

We think the cause is not a slowing in the growth of health search among US consumers, but rather the rise of formidable competitors such as Everyday Health (they merged with Revolution Health late last year)--

NOTE: MedHelp is a major reason for the change in Everyday Health's audience number. The leading health commmunity player went from 2.2 million uniques per month in July-09 to 5.1 million uniques in August-09, in part due to ComScore improving their traffic measuring to get closer to the real numbers. MedHelp now has an eye-popping 8 million monthly uniques globally.

Many of the little eHealth players have shaken out during this recession, where display ad CPMs have cratered. Next year should bring a chance for new growth among a smaller set of sharp-elbowed web portal players.

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MediKeeper First to Dossia

2009-08-28T14:25:00.003-04:00

Cambridge, MA-based Dossia.org is important in eHealth, and MediKeeper is first to integrate to their platform.

On 8/20/2009, San Diego-based MediKeeper put out this press release--

MediKeeper First to Complete Integration with Dossia API

Dossia Consortia Member Employees Can Now Seamlessly Access Healthcare Data Within Personal Health Record, Benefit From Full Value of MediKeeper Solution

SAN DIEGO, CA, August 20, 2009 - MediKeeper, a leading provider of personal health applications and consumer engagement technologies for patient, member, and employee wellness and adherence, today announced it has successfully completed its integration with the Dossia Consortia's application programming interface (API). MediKeeper is the first Dossia partner to complete integration with the newly created Dossia API and is now ready for implementation at Dossia Consortia members. The Dossia Consortia provides an independent, secure nonprofit infrastructure for gathering and securely storing information for lifelong health records.

With the completion of MediKeeper's integration with the Dossia Consortia's API, employees of consortia members can automatically populate all of the clinical data, claims data and prescription data fed into the Dossia repository into their own personal health record. The integration negates the need for employees to manually input all of the information into their health record themselves. Member employees will be able to view their own relevant health information within the MediKeeper solution, enabling the system's full value to be realized as the data is used to track information such as history, drug interactions, gaps in care and alerts. Employees will receive personalized alerts and information based on the data populated in the record, which increases engagement and value to both the employee and employer.

"This is another important step in MediKeeper's relationship with Dossia. We are proud of how quickly our engineering team was able to complete this project and that we are the first to complete the API integration. It is a testament to the quality of our team and the integrative power of the MediKeeper platform. We look forward to moving on to implementation," stated Ryan Tarzy, MediKeeper President.

MediKeeper was formally announced as a Dossia certified vendor in December 2008. Recently, the MediKeeper and Dossia engineering teams have worked closely to complete the integration of MediKeeper's Personal Health Information Management platform with the Dossia API. The integration leveraged the open source standards OAuth and OpenID.

"Dossia has been working closely with MediKeeper, and we are very pleased that we have been able to achieve integration so quickly," said Steve Munini, Dossia COO. "We are excited by the success we have attained thus far, and look forward to continuing to strengthen our relationship."

Dossia's infrastructure is open-source, and made available to personal health application developers, such as MediKeeper, who share a commitment to maintaining a consumer's personal access to and control of health information. The infrastructure is designed to encourage vendor innovation for the benefit of patients and providers nationwide.

About MediKeeper MediKeeper is a private company delivering web-based Personal Health Applications (PHAs) and technologies for patient-centered health information management. MediKeeper offers employers, health plans, and health care providers a robust and consumer-friendly package of customizable web-based tools and content to assist with their health and wellness programs, enhancing ROI while improve the health and quality of life for employees, members, and patients. The applications are built on top of MediKeeper's unique Personal Health Information Management platform, which enables industry-leading data integration, reporting, and user-interface customization. For more information, visit www.medikeeper.com.

About Dossia
Dossia is a non-profit organization consisting of several large U.S. employers who have united under a common vision: to empower their employees to make smarter more informed decisions about their healthcare. Through Dossia, they will leverage their combined influence to break down barriers to health information, which will help drive consumer-initiated change. The Dossia Founders group includes AT&T, Applied Materials, BP America, Cardinal Health, Intel, Pitney Bowes, sanofi-aventis, Abraxis Bioscience and Wal-Mart. For more information, visit www.dossia.org.

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Practice Fusion Gets Salesforce.com Backing

2009-08-10T16:33:00.004-04:00

Practice Fusion, a San Francisco software company that produces free electronic medical record and practice management software for physicians, landed a significant minority investment from Salesforce.com.

The investment is reportedly under $10 million. Practice Fusion is less than three years old.

Further, the Aug. 5 statement said Salesforce.com [NYSE: CRM] plans to offer Practice Fusion’s patient health record on its popular Force.com cloud computing development platform by late this year.

Ryan Howard started Practice Fusion in late 2006 with less than $1 million in funding, and as recently as April 2008 was on the lookout for some $5 million in venture backing, but the VC market had begun to falter in early 2008 and new investments have proved few since then.

As of April 30, 2009, Salesforce said it managed customer information for more than 59,000 customers.

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Wikipedia & NIH

2009-08-02T09:07:00.003-04:00

The NIH and the Wikimedia Foundation teamed up last week to host a training session for NIH scientists and science writers interested in editing health and medical articles on Wikipedia. The project is part of efforts to improve the quality of medical data and health information on the online encyclopedia.

Wikipedia is the #10 U.S. web property, with 60.7 million uniques in June 2009, per comScore.

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Doc-in-the-Box Franchising

2009-07-14T09:45:00.006-04:00

The nascent Doctors Express of Towson, Maryland is hoping to open 3,000 centers around the country, such that anyone can come in without an appointment, in the evening or on weekends when their own doctors' offices are closed, and get stitches, help for a sore throat or even a broken bone treated for less than what they'd pay for a trip to an emergency room, and without the (typically long) wait.

There already are 8,000 other urgent-care centers, including "minute clinics" in retail stores such as CVS. Every Doctors Express will have a physician on duty at all times, unlike some centers that leave patient care to the supervision of a nurse practitioner or the like. All Doctors Express locations will have digital X-ray equipment, a lab and a pharmacy to dispense drugs, which other urgent-care centers may not have.

Doctors Express franchises can be owned by corporate managers who don't have a medical background.

Here's what their website says:

Doctors Express treats everything from cuts and bruises to fractures and colds and everything in between. We have on-site lab tests, x-rays and prescriptions with no appointments needed. We're a state-of-the-art urgent care center with physicians on-site every day.

Our centers are open every day with extended hours. No appointments are needed and we accept most insurance plans.

Doctors Express has 3 execs, two of whom had prior success with Senior Helpers, another franchise operation. The third is a former emergency room doc.

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An iPhone-like Platform for HIT

2009-07-08T11:15:00.004-04:00

From www.chip.org--

AN "iPhone-like" PLATFORM for HEALTHCARE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

June 18, 2009

Leading health care information technology researchers, physicians, and renowned experts in innovation today released a set of core principles to guide the creation of a new health information infrastructure to better support the nation's complex and evolving health system. The principles follow up on a Perspective piece published in The New England Journal of Medicine in March, authored by Isaac S. Kohane, MD, PhD, and Kenneth Mandl, MD, MPH, of the Informatics Program at Children's Hospital Boston. The article argued for the development of a platform model - similar in nature to the approach of the Apple iPhone - that would support an ecosystem of "substitutable" health care applications.

Inspired by the significant response to their concept of creating a platform for health IT, Kohane and Mandl convened a working group at the Harvard Medical School Center for Biomedical Informatics to create a clear set of "next steps" for fostering the development of such a platform.

View Full Press Release

The Full "10 Principles" Statement--

Ten Principles for Fostering Development of an “iPhone-like" Platform for Healthcare Information Technology (June 2009)

Children’s Hospital Informatics Program at Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology
Children’s Hospital Boston, Boston, MA
Center for Biomedical Informatics
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA

Summary

The Informatics Program at Children’s Hospital Boston (CHIP) recently convened a meeting of leading experts in health, innovation and technology to define ten core principles of a platform that would support healthcare information technology.

The meeting was held May 13 at the Harvard Medical School Center for Biomedical Informatics and took the form of a workshop. It followed publication of a New England Journal of Medicine Perspective article authored by CHIP researchers entitled, “No Small Change for the Health Information Economy.” [1] In the paper, the authors argued that a vibrant and evolving health system requires a healthcare information technology infrastructure based less on monolithic, pre-defined products and more on a general-purpose platform that would support a collection of simple applications each doing a single task consistently and reliably. Under this view of a healthcare infrastructure, as one’s needs evolve, one could substitute simple applications within a platform, rather than substitute in an “all or nothing” way, one vendor product for another. The platform would allow a clinical practice or hospital to select the combination of applications that are most useful for the local environment. A practice or a hospital would be able to download, for example, a medication management application from one vendor and a notifiable disease reporting tool from another. As alternative applications are developed by competitors, the existing ones may be replaced, or new ones added.

The authors of the New England Journal of Medicine perspective held up the Apple iPhone as an example of the success of substitutability. The iPhone is one of several products that employ a software platform with a published interface to facilitate a low-cost, efficient, and reliable software development process open to the market; there are now more than 20,000 applications that consumers can download and use with the iPhone. The iPhone separates the platform from the functionality provided by the applications, which are easily substitutable by the lay person. One can download a calendar reminder system, reject it, and download another one instead. The consumer commits to the platform because of its flexibility and commits to various applications on the basis of need, value, usability, and cost.

Participants of the May workshop believe that an infrastructure based on “substitutable” components is a highly promising way to drive down healthcare technology costs, allow flexibility, support standards evolution, accommodate differences in care workflow, foster competition in the market, and accelerate innovation. The model stands in stark contrast to the vast majority of health information systems that have been designed and implemented to date. The current trajectory of health information systems development, we fear, may not scale, may not be sufficiently adaptable, and may not meet even near-term national expectations, much less adapt rapidly to innovations in healthcare delivery.

The workshop participants believe this dramatically different, platform-based “substitutable” model is sufficiently promising to warrant consideration by the Department of Health and Human Services, and many other stakeholders, as they consider means of implementing the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act.
Ten Principles for Fostering
Development of an “iPhone-like” Platform for Healthcare Information Technology

1. Technology platforms that support substitutable applications should be promoted. We suspect that low rates of technology adoption in practice settings may largely be explained in terms of the mismatch between system needs and available products. Rather than ask: “What electronic health record (EHR) is ideal for my practice?” perhaps we should ask, “What tasks do I ‘hire’ my EHR to support?” Some of these tasks—particularly basic clinical and administrative tasks—are fairly well-defined. But in many instances, we simply do not have a census on the specific work activities across the ever-growing number of settings in which technology can support and enable better healthcare. Those who understand these tasks are not empowered to create useful applications to support those tasks, because no platform exists to easily adopt such applications. Platforms composed of substitutable components would promote the creation of, and enable the incremental adoption of, useful task-specific applications with low switching costs. Such an approach is ideal when organizations are adapting to external changes in their practice environment, and discovering more effective means of performing their internal work. A platform of such applications also removes the constraint of a priori determination of tasks and avoids an over-specification of system requirements.

2. Messages and protocols for data exchange should be allowed to emerge on demand in a market-driven approach, and specified transparently at every level. The rapid and recent progress in the standards debate suggests a convergence nationally along a greatly restricted set of standards that can be made interoperable as the need arises and the market dictates. Substitutable applications enable interoperability to evolve with the evolving healthcare system from the bottom up. For example, a suite of wellness applications linked to everyday activities may require unique protocols, but these protocols are currently a matter of debate, and perhaps best resolved through the actual needs of the users of applications—not through forced consensus. While top-down approaches to such problems are at times necessary, they do not foster the nimbleness required to adopt the best of technology in addressing important healthcare needs.

3. Protocols and application programming interfaces should allow the possibility of multiple platforms co-existing. Successful evolution of a platform model may involve development of multiple competing platforms as long as each remains open to substitutable third party applications.

4. Application programming interfaces should be open.Third-party vendors should be able to develop plug-and-play applications and play without barriers.

5. Substitutable application or platform vendors should not have control over what is installed on the platform. In response to provider/practitioner requests, local systems administrators should be able to install modules without permission from the vendor. As long as application developers demonstrate that their software does not adversely interact with other applications, and provides the specified services accurately, consistently, and reliably, platform vendors should have no control over what applications may be created, made available, or installed. Other mechanisms to certify, regulate, or recommend applications should be developed (e.g., through professional societies).

6. Application installation should be turnkey. Administrators of platform-based systems should be able to install applications from different vendors without software programming.

7. The intellectual property of platforms and applications should be kept separate. Only freely available application programming interfaces should be used for all application development. Undocumented access to platform internals should be prohibited, particularly by platform vendors.

8. All applications should be removable and none should be required to run a platform. To avoid “vendor lock,” even base system platform software bundled with substitutable applications should provide an option to remove those applications.

9. The platform should have a highly efficient delivery mechanism for applications. Successful platforms, such as the Apple iPhone platform, have demonstrated the importance of efficient mechanisms for delivering applications to customers.

10. Certification requirements for platforms and applications should be kept minimal to maximize substitutability. This approach moves away from definition of a product, and toward definition of a platform that supports substitutable applications that meet the tasks they are “hired” to perform. Each application must be rigorously shown to have reliable and proven interactions with the base platform, but should not be required to certify specific user functionality. Such an approach eliminates the risk of premature definitions of products like “EHRs,” and rightly returns the focus towards technologies that accomplish the tasks people “hire” these applications to do.

The following individuals attended the workshop and support the collaborative statement of principles reflected in this document.

Workshop co-chairs--

Kenneth D. Mandl, MD, MPH
Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School
Isaac S. Kohane, MD, PhD
Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School

Workshop participants--

Clayton Christensen, PhD
Harvard Business School
Henry Chueh, MD, MS
Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Mark Frisse, MD, MBA, MSc
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
David C. Kibbe, MD, MBA
The Kibbe Group LLC

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BodyTrace: Sharing Your Weight

2009-07-02T08:10:00.010-04:00

NYC-based BodyTrace (founded in 2007) has a mission to revolutionize how people look at weight loss. Over 30% of the U.S. population is obese and according to some recent studies over 75% of U.S. adults will be overweight by the year 2015.

The BodyTrace eScale is a bathroom scale that wirelessly uploads and displays the user's weight at the BodyTrace website. There's a wireless connection so it doesn'y require any software configuration to use. The website’s interface encourages users to share their progress, exercise ideas and recipes to work jointly towards a common goal. Of course one can choose to keep everything private, so one's profile will not be visible to others.

The BodyTrace eScale and the BodyTrace website will be available in September 2009. The BodyTrace eScale will retail for $119; signing up on the BodyTrace website is $19.99 for 3 months' service.

SUMMARY: BodyTrace levers crowdsourcing and the rise in digital home health at the same time. Targeting, as it does, the massive market that is "desire for weight loss," we expect the firm to succeed especially if it rolls out a series of like devices (e.g., blood pressure), all strapped together under a single web interface. For navel-gazers such as triathletes alone this company can likely gain rapid traction; we are increasingly a society that wants to share personal details in real-time.

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FitOrbit: Website & iPhone App

2009-06-24T10:29:00.006-04:00

FitOrbit has launched, aiming to connect health-minded folks with personal trainers for one-on-one fitness and meal plans. FitOrbit has both a website and an iPhone application.

The newly formed company is backed by angel investor Ron Conway, John Brown (President of Time Inc’s Health franchise), Dr. Jeffrey Weisz (Medical Director of Southern California Permanente Medical Group), Kathy Kaehler ("trainer to the stars") and Jake Steinfeld (Founder, Body by Jake, Exercise TV and Chairman of the California Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports). Private investment firm Polar Capital Group has also invested.

The first thing you do at FitOrbit is take a short quiz to determine which real life personal trainer you would want to connect with based on your profile and current lifestyle. You can also choose to pick your own trainer.

Plans start at $9.99 per week for six months, though you can choose to do a one week test run for $29.99. Prices might sound a bit high, but when compared with the prices of personal trainers at gyms, these prices seem compelling.

Each week comes with a daily workout plan and accompanying instructional videos, a personalized daily meal plan with nutritional information, reminders, tracking tools, and feedback from your very own trainer. And your trainer will also be available to you and able to edit your plan on the fly (e.g., if you’re on vacation), and give you one-on-one attention via on-website messaging.

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Certify & Health Info Exchange

2009-06-19T10:57:00.002-04:00

San Jose, CA-based Certify Data Systems is the developer of technology that allows hospitals and doctors' offices to exchange health information.

This week they announced that they raised an undisclosed amount in its second round of funding, led by Ziegler HealthVest Partners. Ziegler also took part in the company's first round last August.

Certify's information exchange gateway and appliance are designed to allow disparate systems to exchange clinical data, such as lab reports, discharge summaries and other patient data [details here].

The recent passage of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 dedicates $19.2 billion to the “meaningful use” of health information technology, while additional provisions in the Act provide nearly $10 billion more for areas such as telehealth, broadband adoption and community health-- no doubt Certify is aiming for some of these funds.

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RxVantage

2009-06-09T12:07:00.005-04:00

Providence, RI-based startup RxVantage attracted a $500K investment from Rhode Island’s venture capital arm, the Slater Technology Fund.

RxVantage allows medical offices to efficiently coordinate educational interactions with the highly-trained individuals (e.g., Pharma Reps) who represent the products and services that improve and extend their patients' lives. Physician Offices can implement RxVantage very quickly and thereafter invite their reps to access their account online to learn everything they need to know about the office and doctors, and schedule educational opportunities.

The company is now seeking additional investors to gain another round of between $6 million and $8 million.

The RxVantage system requires that all appointments are confirmed in advance by reps aiming to sell to doctors, and in the event an appointment is canceled for any reason, the appointment is made available to all other reps in the area. Notionally an "OpenTable" for sales reps.

The idea is to save pharmas the cost of lost productivity, and save doctors precious time otherwise lost to cancellations and no-shows.

The application has been tested in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and achieved a 90% acceptance rating among the early adopters, the company said.

RxVantage is similar to what was Boston-based PreferredTime Inc. The company went out of business about a year ago.

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One of the Best iPhone Health Apps

2009-05-30T12:56:00.005-04:00

The iPhone is getting a wave of great health apps, here is one of the best from Aqua Eagle:

Absolute Fitness allows you to log and manage your food intake, exercise and weight. It gives you the ability to see the nutritional composition of more than 10,000 different kinds of foods and the calorie expenditure of more than 180 different types of exercises. It also allows you to set customized diet goals and keep track of your progress. Absolute Fitness is available for both the iPhone and Android platforms.

Features:

➤ An extensive food and exercise database (with the ability to add custom items).

➤ Nutritional information on macronutrients (calories, fat, etc.) and more than 30 different types of vitamins and minerals*.

➤ Automatic calculation of daily nutrient limits based on your profile and your dietary goal (with the ability to set custom limits).

➤ Dynamic daily nutritional snapshots that help you see how much you have eaten and how much you can still eat.

➤ Customized food analysis.

➤ Graphical charts to track your weight, calories and others over different periods of time.

➤ Ability to create Custom "meals" (food items composed of many individual items - e.g. a salad).

➤ Tracking of Body Fat %, Blood Pressure, Hours of Sleep and Number of glasses of water.

➤ Free-form Notes section.

➤ Ability to export data into two different formats (HTML and CSV).

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eHealth Audiences

2009-05-18T11:03:00.004-04:00

Two online health properties that sprang on the scene in 2007-08, garnering large audiences, have settled down, and now must navigate a decline in online ad spending:

In late 2008 WebMD had an agreement to acquire QualityHealth, but the deal was cancelled. And in the same approximate timeframe, Everyday Health (Waterfront Media) merged with Steve Case's Revolution Health.

Meanwhile, due to Swine Flu, CDC.gov has surged to 5.7 million uniques/month in April of 2009 per comScore. And the only pure play in eHealth in the Top 50 Web Properties in April-09 remains WebMD, logging 21.6 million uniques.

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Interview with Medifocus

2009-05-06T07:16:00.007-04:00

Q & A with Silver Spring, Maryland-based Medifocus:

1. When was Medifocus founded, and how was it funded?

Medifocus was founded in 1996. It was funded by the principals and a group of private investors.

2. What was the impetus to start Medifocus?

The impetus to start Medifocus was the death of a small child who was being treated for an unusual medical condition at the National Institutes of Health. It became clear that had the boy's parents known the full range of available medical treatments a year before he was brought to the NIH his life may have been saved. We realized then and there that a major service could be provided to fill two critical needs - to identify available treatment options, and to locate the leading centers of knowledge for treating specific medical conditions.

3. What problem does Medifocus solve?

Medifocus solves the problem faced by every individual who is struck with a chronic or life threatening medical condition - what are all my treatment options and where do I turn for help? Consumers can easily access the "level I" information available on the Internet at general health sites such as WebMD and EverdayHealth, but then they want to find deeper information - information about all the treatment options in the medical literature that their doctor should be reading. They also want to know the leading medical centers of clinical research, and who are the doctors that are most involved with their medical condition worldwide. The Medifocus Guidebook provides this information for them.

4. Is Medifocus a print publishing/ecommerce play, an online publishing play, or both?

Medifocus is both. Our customers have the option of purchasing an "electronic" (PDF) Guidebook, available immediately, or a printed Guidebook which is sent by mail within 24-48 hours. The printed Guidebook costs a bit more in order to cover printing costs and there is a shipping cost that varies depending on shipping method chosen by the customer. Customers who purchase the printed Guidebook automatically receive instant access to the electronic Guidebook. Additionally, we update each Guidebook 3-4 times per year, a big point of differentiation for us, and all consumers receive these updates free for the first year.

5. What can you tell us about the Medifocus audience?

Since inception Medifocus has sold over 130,000 guidebooks worldwide with a 99% customer satisfaction rating. Our audience has provided us with hundreds of testimonials thanking us for providing them with unique information that made a meaningful difference in their care. And while our privacy policy does not allow us to share specific audience data we do know from our own surveying that the Medifocus customer is among the most targeted, educated, and influential health consumer anywhere online.

6. What is the firm's partnering strategy?

Medifocus partners with other leading health sites using two marketing strategies:

(1) Lead generation - Medifocus provides in-depth Guidebooks for free to consumers who opt into various marketing programs, offers, subscriptions, etc. The partner typically provides the traffic and negotiates the lead-gen deal with Pharma. Pharma in turn receives leads of the highest quality from engaged consumers seeking action. The Medifocus Guidebooks have achieved 10%-22% conversion rates depending on the condition.

(2) Guidebook sales – We engage in revenue sharing relationships with leading health sites in two ways: (i) the partner promotes the Medifocus Guidebooks on its website using a combination of “editorial area" promotion in the relevant channels of the website and (or) text and graphic banners (ROS and targeted), (ii) the partner promotes the Medifocus Guidebooks by sending targeted messages to its database of relevant emails.

7. What firms are in Medifocus' competitive set and how is Medifocus different?

Our competitive set is limited to publishers of higher level consumer medical information. Two examples include Medizine (via its "John Hopkins white papers" product), and MedlinePlus from the NIH.

The Medifocus differentiation:

- Medifocus covers over 70 medical conditions from broad to niche unique in-depth (our guides are typically 100 – 120 pages including medical abstracts and links).

- The Medifocus Guidebooks are updated every 3-4 months via email updates sent to consumers (a great CRM vehicle for us).

- All available treatment options are discussed. We do not promote any drugs or specific procedures.

- The Medifocus Guidebooks identify all the centers of knowledge and top researchers/experts worldwide for over 70 medical conditions including contact information.

- The Medifocus Guidebooks link its customers to the abstracts of relevant medical journal articles which are carefully selected and organized.

- Prompt service, fair pricing, and expert created / high quality / timely content are Medifocus' key success factors.

8. What's next for Medifocus?

In 2009 we are focused on four specific goals:

1. Expanding our network of partner sites.

2. Expanding the number of medical conditions covered in the Medifocus library of Guidebooks

3. Launching a new product called Medifocus Digest Alerts - a free monthly newsletter that offers hand selected links to the latest medical journal information on selected medical conditions. This newsletter will be available to both Guidebook subscribers and non-subscribers.

4. Continuing to optimize the Medifocus.com website.

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Zume Life

2009-04-29T15:15:00.006-04:00

ZumeLife (Los Altos, CA) aims to empower and motivate individuals to become fully and effectively engaged in managing their own health.

The "4 R" Zume Life system has two key components: a mobile device called a "Zuri" that provides day-to-day Reminder and Record functionality, and a website that patients and their caregivers can use to Review health status and make decisions on how best to Respond to the patterns seen.

Currently, Zuri is available as an application that runs on the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. Other versions of Zuri are coming, according to the firm.

Zume Life is all about making self-care a reality for those struggling to manage and treat chronic ailments and conditions. With the Zuri the chronically ill patient can connect the right professionals to their own Personal Wellness Ecosystem.

From www.freepatentsonline.com: Zume Life has United States Patent Application 20080006700, Method and apparatus for identifying and scheduling medicine intake, dated 01/10/2008:

A novel system and method for identifying objects uses a device, such as a pen. The device has integrated components and wireless access to identify objects according to stickers placed on the objects.

BACKGROUND

A number of problems arise in taking medicine. Individuals need to remember to take medicine. They need to take just the right amount. Some individuals even take the wrong medicine if not prevented from doing so.

Many individuals take medicine on a schedule. Often times this schedule is regimented and involves a number of different medicines. The complexity makes remembering which medicines to take at which times difficult for individuals.

Caregivers sometimes create medicine schedules for the individuals. This requires that individuals have a caregiver. However, caregivers are in short supply and are expensive. Further, some individuals cannot remember to look at the schedule. This requires a caregiver to be present to look at the schedule for the individual as well as encourage the individual to take the medicine.

In identifying medicine, pill bottles all look the same to some individuals. The labeling on the bottles is small and sometimes difficult for to read. Individuals can misidentify medicine. This is dangerous because individuals who take many pills could become ill or overdose by taking the wrong medicine.

The foregoing examples of the related art and limitations related herewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings.

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Ameritox: Pain Prescription Management

2009-04-24T15:01:00.006-04:00

Ten-year old, Baltimore-based Ameritox is a leader in pain prescription monitoring.

They're in the business of helping physicians monitor pain medication patients via a series of rigorous checks and balances for compliance with healthcare rules and regulations.

Ameritox processes thousands of specimens daily in their laboratory facilities in Midland, TX.

RxGuardian is their core product, which helps assess whether patients are taking their pain medication consistent with the dosage prescribed by their physicians. RxGuardian reveals far more than whether a patient is taking the prescribed drug or illegal drugs. The firm released a new version of RxGuardian in January of 2009.

From www.freepatentsonline.com: The firm has United States Patent Application 20080183503, METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR GENERATING TOXICOLOGY REPORTS, dated 07/31/2008:

The present disclosure provides methods and apparatuses for generating toxicology reports. Using the methods and apparatus disclosed herein, physicians can more easily understand toxicological lab test results. Physicians receive a toxicology report that explains, in plain language, the toxicological lab test results. A rules engine provides rules for interpreting the toxicological lab test results. Detailed explanations are associated with the rules, and the explanations appear on the toxicology report. The toxicology report greatly reduces the need for the physician to call the toxicology scientist.

SUMMARY: Ameritox lives in a big market opportunity: Getting Pain Med Usage Right.

About 33% of patients are currently taking more medication than prescribed, and 77% are not taking pain medications in strict compliance with their doctor’s instructions, per a study of 200,000 long-term chronic pain patients by the firm.

Further, some 11% of all urine samples contain traces of illicit substances, such as cocaine or marijuana. Some 37% of the samples don't contain any of the prescribed pain medication at all. The study also revealed that 30% of patient samples contained a medication not prescribed by the patient’s doctor, and found that 13% of the samples contained a dosage below the expected range.

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Healthline: eHealth Shakeout Beneficiary?

2009-04-21T07:22:00.008-04:00

Our theory is that the recession is causing eHealth sites to shakeout, especially small ones that were much better at aggregating eyeballs than ad dollars.

If this is true the players among the "Big 10" should be up-trending in terms of audience.

San Francisco-based Healthline has been reasonably busy, as their last five press releases indicate:

Is any of this showing up in their web traffic? Take a look at the graph below-- the property had a surge just as eHealth sites began to fall out in 2008, but monthly uniques have since declined.

Still, some of the big players are no doubt benefiting from the current eHealth economic shear. More on this in the next blog post....

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MDLinx: Ten Years Old

2009-04-15T08:33:00.004-04:00

Washington, DC-based MDLinx is ten years old:

MDLinx connects healthcare professionals and patients to tomorrow’s medical research article knowledge and provides the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries with highly targeted interactive marketing, education, content, and research solutions.

The company's solutions include:

Targeted Online Advertising
Content Licensing, and
Market Research.

These solutions enable pharmaceutical, biotech, and healthcare clients to align offline strategies with online initiatives.

They compete on some level with Sermo, and appear to have a steady-albeit-modest drumbeat of traffic:

MDLinx is aimed at busy physicians, healthcare professionals, and a segment of consumers who seek to stay up to date with the latest research in the medical field. The company aggregates medical articles and research from more than 1,200 peer-reviewed journals and leading news media on a daily basis. Then their physician editors sort this content into 32 medical specialty sites, 36 patient sites, and more than 743 subspecialty sections, all available online. Users can choose to view this information online or subscribe to any of 700+ daily newsletters.

The company no doubt can earn lofty CPMs on their ads versus most eHealth sites: "MDLinx works with eight of the top ten pharmaceutical companies in the world, providing unparalleled online access to sought after target groups."

Of late the firm is moving in a market research direction, which might indicate they are seeing advertising revenue soften, as have so many in eHealth.

And they're offering to license their content to others, too:

The MDLinx network of 24 physician sites, 8 allied health sites, and 36 patient sites provides an unprecedented opportunity for healthcare companies and physician associations to provide targeted medical news to their users every day. MDLinx content feeds originate from more than 1,200 peer-reviewed sources and can provide daily content to your Web site or portal in more than 700 specialty and subspecialty areas. MDLinx offers content licensing through Web site updates and customized e-newsletters.

SUMMARY: The eHealth segment is going through a brutal shakeout as ad rates have tumbled and advertisers have cut budgets; the survivors will acquire, be acquired, or (as is the case with MDLinx) innovate and partner.

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Health Monitor Network: Traditional Magazines

2009-04-08T11:32:00.017-04:00

Today we take a look at Paramus, NJ-based Health Monitor Network (HMN):

Health Monitor Network is the leading marketing platform for pharmaceutical brand awareness, DTC, DTP, compliance and persistency, patient education, and lead generation. With millions of readers of our magazines and custom guides, Health monitor Network has built a trusted media platform for hosting pharmaceutical marketing programs. Clients have utilized the HMN platform, encompassing 110,000+ medical offices, 266,000+ physicians, and 40 million patients / caregivers, for their new product launch and brand marketing programs.

MarketIntellNow Notes--

Market Opportunity: problem, of course, is the trajectory of print in the Web age
Product Line: best-in-class periodicals
Positioning/Competition: one of two major players in a small market; key competitor is MediZine
IP: None that we could discern
Financial Strength: Solid track record back to 1984 founding
Selling Horsepower: Strong relationships with medical practices and advertisers.

SUMMARY: We expect HMN will make a bold move to the web with their superb editorial content to compete more effectively with MediZine. MediZine's REMEDYlife.com already gets 700,000 unique monthly users.

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Rivulet & IP Video

2009-04-06T10:56:00.005-04:00

Today we consider Herndon, VA-based Rivulet:

Rivulet Communications enables medical, government and enterprise customers to flawlessly transport high-bandwidth, mission-critical and real-time applications over existing IP networks.

In major healthcare institutions, video is increasingly becoming an essential element of improved patient care as well as physician training and collaboration. Rivulet's applications are currently used to transport, archive and access HD medical-grade video throughout the hospital campus over the existing IP infrastructure. The video quality Rivulet delivers is superior to that using compression mechanisms or analog solutions and can be accessed anywhere that a computer can be connected to the network.

In government and media applications, Rivulet's solutions are used to flawlessly transport VoIP, TDM (Circuit Emulation), video and satellite communications over existing IP networks. With Rivulet applications these services can be transported without the impairments typical of IP networks. As a result, our customers can confidently achieve network convergence and increase network utilization, while reducing the cap-ex and op-ex associated with continually over-provisioning and re-engineering the network.

These applications are powered by Rivulet's innovative core technology, Dynamic Synchronization Technology (DST). DST works by synchronizing packets as they enter the IP network, virtually eliminating network resource contention and the resultant delay, packet loss and jitter, as well as the low utilization typically associated with convergence over IP networks.

Through its broad product portfolio, breakthrough technology, strong leadership and partners, Rivulet Communications is delivering network convergence solutions for our customers.

MarketIntellNow Notes--

Market Opportunity: big economic benefits in real-time training and collaboration
Product Line: very smart "complete application approach" to medical video
Positioning/Competition: early leader in a market that will attract big players
IP: Total of seven current patents
Financial Strength: $11.5 million "C" round in Feb-2009
Selling Horsepower: Probably too early for indirect channels like this.

SUMMARY: Rivulet is sitting pretty with leading technology that enables HD Medical Video anywhere on and off the hospital IP network. While big players that OWN their back-end network will come, they're most likely acquirers of this nimble first-mover.

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CardioNet & Digital Home Health

2009-04-03T07:22:00.011-04:00

We're impressed with Conshohocken, PA-based CardioNet (NASDAQ: BEAT):

CardioNet has developed an integrated technology and service–mobile cardiac outpatient telemetry (MCOT)—which enables heartbeat-by-heartbeat, ECG monitoring, analysis and response, at home or away, 24/7/365.

CardioNet is focused on helping physicians diagnose and treat patients with arrhythmias. Time is of the essence in diagnosing and treating arrhythmias. Delays can lead to increased morbidity and mortality and cause significant anxiety for patients. But rapidly diagnosing and effectively treating patients with arrhythmia can be challenging. Some arrhythmias occur too infrequently to be detected through 24-48 hours of Holter monitoring. Event recorders pose problems with asymptomatic patients and those who have difficulty triggering monitoring equipment. Correlating events with symptoms is often difficult. CardioNet offers physicians a powerful diagnostic and patient management tool to address these challenges.

MarketIntellNow Notes--

Market Opportunity: digital home health is growing fast off a small base
Product Line: well-crafted for both docs & patients with one small study so far
Positioning/Competition: competitive set includes behemoth Philips Healthcare
IP: 24 current patents
Financial Strength: 65% annual revenue growth in '08
Selling Horsepower: Strong in the US with 88 account reps covering 49 states.

SUMMARY: Companies moving what were once hospital-based services to the home can prosper if they navigate the shoals of IP, reimbursement et al. It's worth noting that CardioNet has product muscle ... and selling muscle. It has direct account reps in 49 of 50 states, flooding the zone in the USA before being lured to foreign shores where players like Dutch giant Philips are well-established and reimbursement methods are far different.

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VisionTree: Helping Eradicate Paper

2009-03-27T17:13:00.006-04:00

San Diego-based VisionTree is inarguably a leader in web-based patient-centered health record management, communication and data collection systems. They have VisionTree Optimal Care™ or VTOC, VisionTree MOC Online™ and VisionTree Clinical Trials™ for web-based data collection, speeding workflow, and improving communication, documentation and quality of care.

And they have a patent application for a Patient Health Management Portal, from 8/2007 (courtesy www.freepatentsonline.com):

A secure online patient health management portal for patient and payer/provider communication, documentation and improved workflow efficiency. A payer/provider portal provides patient and file management, patient tasking and reminders, calendaring, creation and management of medical condition templates, aggregate report generation and electronic informed consent. A patient portal provides personal health management, task management and reminders, comprehensive access to and management of health records and documentation, calendaring, online payer/provider and institution communication, prescription and finance management and discussion forums.

Since 2002, VisionTree has implemented solutions at 70 sites across some 200,000 patients. The firm is laser-focused on eliminating the paper process of patient’s completing information and saving steps to input their data directly into a secure, electronic and easily accessible format.

VTOC is a user-friendly system for both patient and staff involvement in electronic documentation, which completes the workflow where traditional electronic medical records end.

VisionTree indicates that results have included:

1. 90%+ of patients want to keep using it for long term care with their physician
2. 80%+ patient compliance
3. 85%+ rated very user-friendly
4. Average age of patient user is 61
5. 20% improved efficiency – through reminder/messaging system

SUMMARY: VisionTree is a company-to-watch, especially with EMR gaining new life thanks to the planned Obama administration spend over the next 2-3 years.

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MedApps: Wireless Health

2009-03-25T16:53:00.005-04:00

Scottsdale, AZ-based MedApps is focused on making healthcare available anywhere, for anyone, through innovative wireless health monitoring solutions.

MedApps has developed a system that integrates cost-effective, easy-to-use, wireless health monitoring devices with a broad set of online health management tools. The MedApps System is aimed at the burgeoning wireless medical monitoring market. The company's theme is: "Healthcare Anywhere".

One of their offerings is HealthPAL:

HealthPAL automatically collects data from compatible, off-the-shelf, medical monitors using a smart cable or wirelessly via Bluetooth. The data is then transmitted using embedded M2M cellular chip (GSM and CDMA) technology to be received by HealthCOM, MedApps' full-featured, web-based portal for health care providers.

About the size of a cell-phone, the HealthPAL is ultra-portable for maximum mobility and its low cost enables remote monitoring to be available to large patient populations. It is considered to be the ultimate in simplicty. While it has buttons for special features and set-up, during daily operation the reading and data transmissions are COMPLETELY automated. The patient does not push any buttons, navigate any screen commands or touch the HealthPAL in any fashion.

HealthPAL is currently approved for use in conjunction with glucose meters. As additional approvals are received, MedApps looks forward to expanding its capabilities to include the recording and transmitting of data from weight scales, blood pressure monitors, INR monitors, ECG, Pulse Ox, CPAP, spirometers and O2 concentrators.

The HealthPAL has audio capability and can "speak" readings and alerts to the user. HealthPAL also has multi-lingual capability and can be programmmed to address patients in their own language.

We don't see any patents or patent applications yet for MedApps, Inc. at www.freepatentsonline.com, but they claim to have filed for 31.

SUMMARY: In the next three years we'll see the rise of what we call the "Homespital," and wireless medical devices and the back-end ecosystem facing doctors and patients into which they tether in real-time will become very prominent, very rapidly.

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NaviMedix

2009-03-22T10:25:00.005-04:00

Cambridge, MA-based NaviMedix (founded in 1998) is a leader-- perhaps THE leader-- in real-time healthcare communications, with 700,000 Healthcare Professionals on board.

Their NaviNet is America’s largest real-time healthcare communications network, giving physician offices and hospitals a single point of access to conduct patient-centric financial, clinical and administrative interactions with national and regional health plans and other sponsoring healthcare companies.

NaviNet now facilitates nearly 400 unique, sponsor-branded information exchanges, allowing providers to access real-time patient information such as eligibility, benefits and claim status, as well as advanced clinical information, including patient care alerts and personal health records from the health plans and other companies with which they do business.

The firm addresses the 25% of all healthcare costs that are administrative; it's a ripe area for real RoI.

The 200-employee firm has this patent (courtesy www.freepatentsonline.com): System for Dynamic Information Exchange from January, 2008:

The communication bridge enables trading partner customers to mass customize their interactions with their affiliated trading partners by controlling workflow and data presentation. A method and system allows the integration of standard and proprietary content, such as data and “look-and-feel” elements, from trading partners to be presented via a standard interface for the purpose of conducting mass customized interactions (transactions, communications). There is a high degree of variability in screen and workflow presentation. A particular Application Programming Interface (API) facilitates the dynamic exchange of information between disparate trading partners and end users.

SUMMARY: eHealth, especially on the supply-side, is moving rapidly towards real-time connectivity at every touchpoint, including the patient-doctor interface, and the money savings with the right implementations are eye-popping.

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MedFusion

2009-03-18T09:47:00.006-04:00

Raleigh, NC-based MedFusion is at the intersection of physicians' offices and the web, offering Improved Efficiency via their communications solutions, such that patients fill out standard and custom forms, request appointments and prescription refills, and even communicate with practice staff online.

They sell their solutions via the lens of RoI, with a clever tool on their website that allows docs to "game" their practice.

From their website:

Medfusion offers patient-provider communication solutions nationally to enable healthcare providers offer superior service to their patients while improving office efficiency and generating revenue. Medfusion’s powerful web-based solutions virtually transforms physician/patient communications using applications for pre-registration, appointment requests and reminders, outbound messaging, lab results delivery, prescription renewals, online bill payment, virtual office visits, and unique web sites. Medfusion is the preferred portal and website provider for the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP).

MedFusion stands to benefit as an increasing percentage of appointments move from not just online booking, but online fulfillment (virtual visit to the doctor).

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DestinationRx

2009-03-16T10:04:00.010-04:00

LA-based DestinationRx wants you to create a free account and manage your scrips with them, mostly as a way for you to save money.

Here are the top searches on their site, to give you a sense of their consumer audience--

Lipitor
Tri-Sprintec
Synthroid
Metformin hcl
Prevacid
Zocor
Crestor
Flomax
Accupril
Topicort.

From their website:

Since 1999, DestinationRx has evolved from a pioneer in prescription drug price comparison into the recognized industry leader. The company built and owns the most comprehensive drug therapy and price comparison database available, which we combine with proprietary technology to equip individual consumers and organizations with educational, strategic, and transaction-support tools to navigate the ever-changing healthcare marketplace. We work with government agencies, such as Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and some of the nation's largest commercial health plans and non-profit groups.

DestinationRx aggregates a meds-centric audience:

1.4 million marketable "DRx Medicine Cabinets" for advertiser messaging
400 million+ medicine cabinet sessions in the last 36 months
10 million "actions" taken on over 80+ sites in the DRx network (their partners)
"DRx Medicine Cabinet" Growth of 337% over the last 12 months
65% of all Medicare enrollees (23 million+) use DRx technology
300,000 unique visits a month (note current Quantcast data pictured above).

Here are their stated ad rates, far in excess of current CPMs in eHealth, but then pharmas can afford the richest cost per impression.

SUMMARY: In the shaking-out eHealth environment of today, the onus is on most properties to be one or the other of these, not both: A Direct-to-Consumer destination site, or a Partner Property that white-labels its solution for others, or at least allows co-branding.

We think DRx's "My Medicine Cabinet" is well-executed, and given the modest audience aggregated to date directly, partnering likely is the best bet.

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EmpowHer Launches

2009-03-12T11:55:00.003-04:00

Phoenix, AZ-based EmpowHer.com has launched.

It offers women a comprehensive multimedia library, access to leading medical experts and advocates, and a devoted community where women can ask, share and connect with one another in a safe and supportive environment.

The launch follows a beta period, during which EmpowHer reached over 200,000 women around the world.

From their website:

EmpowHer was created based on one woman's experience with our sometimes challenging healthcare system. Michelle King Robson, EmpowHer's Founder, suffered from serious health issues. In spite of considerable resources and access to care, Michelle cycled through several different doctors who prescribed multiple treatments and medications. After nearly a year, she found herself suffering in silence – confused, isolated and still sick. Michelle ultimately became her own advocate and started on the road to wellness. She went on to become a renowned medical advocate helping women across the country. Now Michelle has helped assemble a team of leading medical, technology and media experts at EmpowHer – all focused on expanding her vision and improving women's health one woman at a time.

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RealAge, Real Audience

2009-03-10T09:42:00.008-04:00

San Diego-based RealAge is a Hearst Digital Media property, and has a huge and growing audience:

RealAge is consumer-health media company and provider of personalized health information and management tools. These tools aim to motivate health-conscious people to look, feel, and actually be many years younger— to Live Life to the Youngest®.

RealAge levers the writings of Michael Roizen, the chief wellness officer at the well-regarded Cleveland Clinic.

RealAge has a powerful direct response mechanism-- a measurement standard for healthcare. The RealAge Test provides medically-based metrics that compare biological versus calendar age, based upon answers to the test.

RealAge experts developed the metric by reviewing 25,000 medical studies, which revealed 125 different factors that can influence rate of aging.

The test bears a patent, System and method for developing and selecting a customized wellness plan, dated 7/31/2001 [courtesy www.freepatentsonline.com]:

The System and Method for Developing a Customized Wellness Plan of the present invention provides a means of measuring a user's wellness by determining a user's physiological age. The disclosed system and method also provides a means by which a user can learn about personalized wellness options, where the wellness options have been chosen for the user based upon wellness factors input by the user, additional constraints input by the user and the most recently available information relating to the health sciences. The user can select one or more of the disclosed options, and determine the potential effect implementing the options could have on the user's physiological age over the short or long term. In this fashion, the user can continue selecting various groups of alternatives until he or she has determined the group of options that the user would like to implement as a wellness plan. The user can then obtain further information regarding the chosen wellness plan from the system and method of the present invention. The disclosed system and method also provides a means whereby a user can monitor their progress toward improving wellness, wherein this progress can be positive or negative.

The site is ad-monetized, the details are here. In an eHealth space that is stalled in terms of ad rates, if not declining, RealAge is a real bright spot.

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Epocrates

2009-03-09T10:22:00.006-04:00

San Mateo, CA-based Epocrates has great momentum. Back in April of 2008 this clinical data provider filed for an estimated $75 million initial public offering, but it appears to have been pulled or stalled. The firm's investors include Sprout Group, Interwest Partners, Three Arch Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Bay City Capital and Goldman Sachs.

Founded in 1998, the 200-employee firm develops clinical information and decision support tools that enable healthcare professionals to find answers more quickly and confidently at the point of care.

More than 600,000 healthcare professionals, including one in four U.S. physicians, use Epocrates’ mobile and web-based products to help them reduce medical errors, improve patient care and increase productivity.

Epocrates' new version of their Essentials suite was developed exclusively for the iPhone platform. It takes advantage of the iPhone's touch-screen interface, and introduces new disease content, features and functionality to the platform. The Essentials premium software solution includes:

* Drug prescribing and safety information for more than 3,300 drugs, including pill pictures
* Peer-reviewed disease content and evidence-based differential diagnosis developed in conjunction with the BMJ Group, publisher of the British Medical Journal
* Infectious disease treatment guide with empiric and specific treatment recommendations
* Hundreds of diagnostic and laboratory tests for interpretation and diagnostic support
* 600+ alternative (herbal) medications with drug interactions
* MedMath medical calculators including commonly-used pregnancy wheel and unit conversions.

Epocrates offerings are about convenient access to the critical information doctors need all on one device right at the point of care. The firm's suite features cross-linking between the drug, disease and diagnostic content and can be used to support a patient’s consultation from diagnosis to treatment.

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Doctors On Demand

2009-03-05T15:38:00.003-05:00

We like Jacksonville, FL-based Doctors On Demand from Delta Health.

They aim to provide personalized health care initially face-to-face to be followed by the convenience of telemedicine.

The model requires every patient to see their Delta Health Network Physician for an initial, face-to-face visit. Then every patient is assigned a Personal Assurance Agent. The "PAA" calls to introduce himself/herself, gives his/her direct phone number and email address, and spends a few minutes getting to know the patient.

Then, the doctor will deliver follow-up visits via telephone for the next year assuming the patient's condition doesn't change.

This is in the wheelhouse of our prediction: A significant percentage of doctor visits will move to virtual (phone, email, IM, even video) over the next three years.

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Home Medical Monitoring

2009-03-03T12:06:00.003-05:00

Providers of personal health technologies such as health monitoring devices and personal health records (PHR) are projected to generate more than $460 million in revenue by 2013 by targeting the disease management (DM) industry, according to a new Parks Associates’ report.

Players like Intel are already in the game, in their case with the Health Guide pictured above.

The report, Disease Management Industry and High-Tech Adoption, cites changes in the healthcare landscape combined with the new Democratic administration’s stimulus package and reform initiatives as catalysts for accelerated technology spending over the next several years.

From the Intel website:

The Intel Health Guide is meant to be a powerful care management tool for healthcare professionals who manage patients with long-term (chronic) conditions.

The Intel Health Guide promotes greater patient engagement and more efficient care management by enabling communications between patients and healthcare professionals and providing clinicians with access to the most current, actionable data. This comprehensive personal health system combines an in-home patient device—the Intel Health Guide PHS6000—as well as an online interface—the Intel Health Care Management Suite—allowing clinicians to monitor patients and remotely manage care.

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1life

2009-03-01T10:59:00.002-05:00

San Francisco-based called 1Life has raised $8 million led by Benchmark Capital, which was joined by existing shareholder Pinnacle Ventures.

1life fits the trend we see towards virtual visits, and lists these value-prop points--

Same-day appointments
Longer, more personalized visits that start on time
Team of trusted physicians and providers
Email access to all clinicians
Online health tools.

The firm's CEO Thomas Lee was Chief Medical Officer, VP Product Design and Editor-in-Chief at Epocrates. Lee founded 1Life in 2005 and ran it while he was still with Epocrates for about 3 years.

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Interview with CureTogether

2009-02-25T08:30:00.003-05:00

We quizzed the folks at CureTogether.com-- here's what they say on their well-designed website:

Feel Better. Help Find Cures.

CureTogether is a platform for open source health research.
Use it to:

* Compare symptoms with people like you
* Find treatments that work
* Optimize your health

1) Tell us about CureTogether.com-- what was the impetus to start it?

Daniel Reda and I started CureTogether because we have loved ones who suffer from chronic illness and wanted to combine our scientific and technology skills to help them. Our previous startup was Redasoft, a bioinformatics software company that we grew to more than 450 customers in 37 countries before selling the technology to Hitachi Software.

CureTogether helps people anonymously track and compare health data - to better understand their bodies, make more informed treatment decisions and contribute data to research. We started with the following foundational philosophy, and weave everything we do at CureTogether through these ideas:

a. If you measure yourself over time, you’ll learn valuable things about your health.
b. If you compare your measurements with those of others, you’ll learn even more.
c. Many people living with chronic conditions would suffer less if they could learn from the cumulative knowledge and experience of their peers.
d. If we gather and analyze data from thousands of people, we’ll discover new approaches for diagnosing, managing and treating disease.
e. The more active you are in managing your health, the better you’ll feel.

2) Tell us about your book?

This is the first crowdsourced women's health book. It's being released this week, called "Vulvodynia Heroes: 190 Women Share Their Experiences and Treatments."

Vulvodynia is a painful chronic condition that affects 16% of women at some point in their lives. It's one of our most active communities at CureTogether, with information about symptoms, treatments, and causes added by almost 200 women with vulvodynia. By compiling this information into a book we hope to spread awareness, reach out to people in pain who may not
have heard of vulvodynia, and increase interest and funding for future research.

The most surprising thing for us was to learn how many women - 51% of respondents! - live with multiple, co-morbid health conditions, and what these conditions are. This opens up new questions for research and understanding of how human bodies work (and don't work).

For more information about Vulvodynia Heroes, visit http://www.curetogether.com/VHeroes/

3) How does crowdsourcing figure in CureTogether?

Everything at CureTogether is crowdsourced. We chose 3 conditions as case studies, but our members soon expanded the number of conditions to 214, from Acid Reflux to William's Syndrome. People add their symptoms, treatments, causes/triggers, and resources for their condition. Everyone else who has that condition can check off whether they have that symptom too, how well that treatment worked, or whether they have the same triggers.

Individual data is private and anonymous, and the aggregate statistics are open, so patients can get a sense of where they fit on the spectrum. Joining CureTogether is free, so anyone can participate and contribute to the crowdsourced health knowledge being generated.

4) How are you driving traffic to your site, and will you have a partner program?

CureTogether did a soft launch in July 2008, and traffic so far has been largely by word of mouth - through condition bloggers, health 2.0 enthusiasts, foundations, and a bit of press. We are exploring a variety of partnership options at the moment.

5) How are you funded, and what is the monetization approach for the site?

We are self-funded and not disclosing revenue models yet.

Phreesia: Clipboard goes Tablet

2009-02-22T20:20:00.007-05:00

Take a look at NYC-based Phreesia:

Phreesia is the patient check-in company. Phreesia automates patient check-in and delivers fully interactive content direct-to-patients, designed to interface with physicians' existing and future technology. Replacing the traditional patient clipboard with a free wireless touchscreen and swipe-card enabled PhreesiaPad significantly improves the patient check-in experience.

This month Phreesia closed another $11.6 million round, bringing the total investment to date to $25 million. BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners, L.P., a corporate venture fund of the BlueCross BlueShield Association, and Sandbox Industries led the round, joining existing investors Polaris Venture Partners, HLM Venture Partners, and Long River Ventures.

BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners is a $116 million venture capital fund to which 11 independent BlueCross and BlueShield companies have committed capital. The fund invests in technologies, products, and services in the U.S. healthcare industry that promote efficiency, lower costs, and improve options for consumers. The fund is managed jointly by representatives from the BlueCross BlueShield Association, participating BlueCross BlueShield companies, and Sandbox Industries, a Chicago-based venture capital firm.

Phreesia is free to physician practices, and ad-sponsored. This demo explains how it works, click here.

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dLife

2009-02-18T19:28:00.006-05:00

About 20 million Americans have diabetes. If you can't make it in eHealth focusing on this chronic disease, is there any hope for specialty portals?

Westport, Connecticut-based dLife.com (launched in 2004, the company is LifeMed) is exquisitely well-produced. Audience? About 375,000 monthly uniques:

Our rule of thumb is it takes half a million uniques per month before a site has enough pageviews ... and ad impressions to make for a going concern. South of .5 million uniques per month, most sites need to join an ad network.

LifeMed raised a "C" round in late 2006, garnering $9.5 million. dLife has other distribution mechanisms besides the web, but the weight of VC expectations in eHealth don't make the numbers work seamlessly for a pure portal play.

The dLife media kit speaks to more uniques per month than the above: 476,000. Say users see 10 ad impressions per month-- that's 4.76 million ad impressions each month. You can throw more ad impressions at each user, but there are diminishing returns (it's called frequency capping).

At $10 CPM, this is $47K/month (yes, that's all) in revenue. At a lofty $20 CPM (few eHealth sites see $20 CPMs), it's almost $100K per month, or $1.14 million per year in ad revenue.

And dLife is by far #1 in diabetes online. Wringing dollars from eHealth-- not as easy as you might think.

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SugarStats: Remains the Best in Diabetes Management

2009-02-15T16:27:00.005-05:00

Every year we look closely at diabetes dashboards, because it's where PHRs fit best, and there are 250 million people around the world who have either the Type I or Type II version of this chronic disease.

Still, now here in 2009, we see one service that hands-down is the best dashboard into one's diabetes (or that of a loved one): SugarStats.com.

It's a rare web service that doesn't overstate on their website:

With SugarStats you will be able to:

Get rid of that pen & paper log: It's all online!
Track & manage: meds, foods and activity
Drill down: into specific timeframes to get a clear picture of your stats over time
Visualize your progress: with easy to read graphs and trends
Share your statistics: with your family, friends or doctor
Collaborate and exchange messages: with those your share your stats with
Use Internationally: with either mg/dL or mmol/L glucose scales

SugarStats has crisp/clear graphics, integrates to the torrid Twitter, has a mobile edition, and allows sharing of one's blood sugar data with health professionals et al.

The firm is based in Hawaii, and has a significant lead on their competition. Best of all, it doesn't succumb to the feature-sprawl of most PHRs-- it delivers just what the diabetic needs without boiling the ocean, with extraordinary ease-of-use and an unshakable sense of mission (inspiring better care).

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QualityHealth & Everyday Health

2009-02-12T16:22:00.001-05:00

Take a look at two properties that grew very fast in 2008 [details]:

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TelaDoc

2009-02-10T10:34:00.003-05:00

Readers of the MarketIntellNow blog know we see a growing percentage of healthcare appointments moving to ... virtual (phone and/online). Thus, we like TelaDoc, based in Dallas, Texas.

Here's their services description:

TelaDoc is…A national network of board certified, licensed primary care physicians (PCP) that diagnose illness, recommend treatment, and prescribe medication, when appropriate, for its members over the telephone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. TelaDoc is a convenient, cost-effective alternative for minor medical problems and a current solution for the health care issues of cost and access.

TelaDoc services do not replace the care of the PCP …they complement and enhance the quality of care. TelaDoc physicians are trained and experienced in telephone based cross coverage. They must also meet our strict physician credentialing guidelines.

Did you know?

91% of TelaDoc consults result in a diagnosis and/or treatment
95% of TelaDoc patients would refer the service to friends and family!

Cross Coverage Medical Consults

Cross coverage is the art and science of providing standard medical assessments, treatments, care and services to patients via the telephone when the PCP is unavailable or inaccessible.

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Univita: Aging-in-Place Portal

2009-02-06T09:43:00.006-05:00

Singer Island, Florida-based Enurgi has aggregated over 1.2 million caregivers.

Here's their description:

ENURGI is a revolutionary web-based healthcare services company that connects families and patients in need with local, clinical caregivers across the country. ENURGI allows patients, family members and caregivers to independently manage the care process through on-line scheduling, messaging, referral and direct payment transactions.

ENURGI is transforming the delivery of home health care services across the country. ENURGI is the first web-based company to aggregate and create a clinical caregiver database for families and patients in need of home health care to access and connect with. Harnessing the power of technology, ENURGI has accumulated over 1,000,000 clinicians within its caregiver database for families/patients in need to access when seeking a licensed clinician, certified nurses aide or home health aide.

Scottsdale, AZ-based Univita Health just bought them:

Univita Health is creating an integrated care model that promotes independent aging through home-based care and support. Its mission is to transform the home into a place to age safely, monitor and receive care, and live an entire life with dignity. Univita will service in-home care needs by providing home health care, infusion therapy and home medical equipment, and is developing a virtual marketplace for individuals to find a range of associated products and services. Univita will apply unique technologies to improve communication between patients, families, caregivers and physicians and will assist individuals and families by providing personalized assessments and decision support tools including financial planning and support.

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Hello, HelloHealth

2009-02-03T14:11:00.003-05:00

In our view, NYC-based HelloHealth is the most exciting thing happening in eHealth today:

Their value prop bristles with CONVENIENCE, and Americans will crawl over broken glass for more speed/less hassle:

Appointments are easy too. Once you're a member, you can make an appointment to see us as early as today or tomorrow. There’s no sitting around and no assistant to go through. Just pick a free time on the web and go visit your doctor, or have him visit you.

And:

Hello Health membership gives you a lot of different ways to communicate with your doctor. If you want to talk in person, you can stop by our office, give us a call, or have us come to your home.

But maybe you just have a quick question, need a prescription refilled, or want a quick follow-up on your last visit. We’d be happy to sit down with you online, through email, instant message, text or video chat.

Visit PHRs and social networking sites in eHealth all you want. But 2009 will be the launching point of booking appointments online ... and HAVING appointments online.

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Predicton: Online Health Appointments

2009-02-01T10:07:00.003-05:00

Take a look at what GoHealth Insurance is doing here: Click-to-Call.

We see this model moving to actual doctor-patient appointments, with a growing percentage of appointments moving from face-to-face to web/phone, a la Hello Health (Dr. Jay Parkinson is behind it, we interviewed him several months ago).

More on Hello Health in a few days, right here.

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THCN gets Wellsphere

2009-01-28T11:31:00.004-05:00

If you're small in eHealth, what do you need to do to survive the ugly consumer ad environment, especially if your site smacks of social networking? Get acquired, a la Wellsphere.

Press Release from 1/28/2009:

HealthCentral Acquires Wellsphere Creating the Largest Organically Driven Online Health and Wellness Communities

Deal Adds Nearly Four Million Unique Visitors per Month to HealthCentral Reach

ARLINGTON, Va. and SAN MATEO, Calif., Jan. 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- HealthCentral (www.HealthCentral.com), the leading collection of online condition-specific consumer health and wellness experiences, today announced the acquisition of Wellsphere, a leading health technology company, adding nearly four million monthly unique visitors to HealthCentral's audience. The acquisition combines HealthCentral's high-quality, condition-specific interactive experiences, content and audience with Wellsphere's aggregation of over 1,500 health and wellness bloggers and unique Health Knowledge Engine(TM) technology that deciphers highly specific health information. HealthCentral also will leverage Wellsphere's health community enterprise technology which powers Stanford University's BeWell@Stanford site (http://stanford.wellsphere.com) to deliver valuable health information and wellness tools for Stanford employees. The deal raises HealthCentral's audience of its owned properties to ten million unique visitors per month, and makes the company the largest organic aggregation of online health and wellness communities.

"This is a significant combination of quality audience and content with one-of-a-kind technology and scale," said Christopher M. Schroeder, CEO of HealthCentral. "Consumers have very specific health and wellness needs - not just to diet but to lose a specific amount of weight in a particular period of time. Health publishers must provide information and options for consumers to engage that are immediately relevant and useful. Because our traffic is organic, not from pay-per-click keywords, our audience members arrive more engaged, ready to act, and research shows they do act on what they learn. We now will be able to deliver measurably better ROI for advertisers on an even larger scale."

"Wellsphere's mission is to help millions of people live healthier, happier lives by connecting them with the knowledge, people and tools they need to manage and improve their health. HealthCentral shares our goal to deliver accurate, condition-specific information to consumers where they want it and when they want it, and most importantly on their own terms," said Ron Gutman, founder and CEO of Wellsphere. "Comprehensiveness of quality information is what makes the HealthCentral-Wellsphere merger so unique. This deal combines HealthCentral's business savvy with Wellsphere's technical expertise, and will allow us to build on our current success on a broader scale."

Growing more than 3,000 percent in monthly unique visitors from 2008 to 2009, Wellsphere serves nearly 300,000 health-related articles, over 250,000 health-related images, and nearly 20,000 health and healthy living videos. In addition to the Health Knowledge Engine(TM), Wellsphere offers an innovative suite of tools that enable consumers to enhance their personal health, such as:

* Wellphone - a mobile platform that allows consumers to send personal text message reminders on action items, like going to the gym or taking medication, receive daily health and fitness tips, search for local health and wellness resources, and even log progress on their health goals.
* Wellternatives - helps consumers make healthier menu choices at their favorite restaurants by providing nutrition information for menu items at thousands of restaurants across the country. Consumers can also access on-the-go healthy alternative menu suggestions.
* WellPages- powered by the innovative Health Knowledge Engine(TM) to enable consumers to instantly uncover comprehensive support for their specific health needs - all under one personalized account. WellPages present a holistic view, including relevant news, articles, videos and pictures from reliable sources ranging from the FDA and Harvard Medical School to leading health and fitness magazines and blogs.
* Wellsphere Enterprise Solutions - proprietary health community platforms to help large organizations improve employee health and reduce healthcare costs. Stanford University's BeWell@Stanford has demonstrated the power of community to engage thousands of users in taking steps to improve their health and well-being.
* WellPrize - allows consumers to harness the power of incentives by declaring a reward for themselves for achieving goals.
* WellWidgets - offers online mobility by allowing access to Wellsphere functionality, such as the Wellternatives menu lookup engine, daily WellTips or Wellevation (daily motivational quotes) to blogs or social networking profiles.

About Wellsphere

Founded by Stanford University Business School graduates, Wellsphere (www.Wellsphere.com) is based in and will remain in San Mateo, CA. The fastest growing health and wellness technology company, Wellsphere develops Web and mobile technologies that help millions of people live healthier, happier lives by providing a free consumer health website at www.wellsphere.com, and building online health platforms for large organizations.

About The HealthCentral Network

The HealthCentral Network, Inc. (www.HealthCentral.com) is comprised of the highest quality condition- and wellness-specific interactive health sites where consumers and vetted experts share real-life, health-related experiences and information. Recognized for its unique audience-knowledge model and targeted online health advertising network, HealthCentral has partnerships with leading online health tools (such as Microsoft's HealthVault) as well as more than 25 leading health non-profits (such as The American Diabetes Association). HealthCentral is venture backed by IAC/InteractiveCorp (NASDAQ: IACI), Polaris Ventures, Sequoia Capital, The Carlyle Group and Allen & Company.

Editor's note: numbers are based on internal projections and figures from Wellsphere and HealthCentral.

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NBC's HealthVideo.com

2009-01-26T09:28:00.004-05:00

NBC has YourTotalHealth, under the iVillage banner.

And it took what was Healthology, and made it HealthVideo.com-- now about 4 months old.

FROM THEIR WEBSITE: Launched in 2008, the NBC Digital Health Network is a new business created under the NBC Universal Digital Media group and is focused on the multi-platform distribution of premium health video. Utilizing the original, condition-specific and healthy living videos created weekly across the company, the NBC Digital Health Network enables increased patient education by providing its distribution partners with the robust content they need to create an informative viewing experience for the millions of users looking for health information wherever they may be.

The NBC Digital Health Network reaches consumers with relevant health and wellness information from multiple distribution platforms that include HealthVideo.com, The Patient Channel and The Newborn Channel. HealthVideo.com offers consumers a rich video library on health topics ranging from healthy aging to diseases and conditions to children's health. The Patient Channel provides credible and trusted television programming information to patients and their families in over 1,600 hospitals across the country.

The Newborn Channel produces baby care and postpartum programming for new parents in over 1,000 hospitals nationwide. Combined, they reach over18MM viewers annually. Other multi-platform distribution partners include Healthline Networks, RightHealth, Wellness Wireless and National Cable Communications (NCC) Spot Cable. Combined, the distribution reaches 30MM homes annually through VOD and 9MM viewers online.

Here's how HealthVideo.com, a Top 20 eHealth site, is doing:

Inbound Links: 2,774,943
Monthly Visitors per Quantcast: 355,631
Google PageRank: 6

In September 2008, NBC Digital Health Network announced six new, multi-platform distribution partners:

• The American Cancer Society, a nationwide, community-based voluntary health organization, will collaborate with the Network to marry one of the most trusted sources for health awareness with quality health video content online.

• EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO) is the premier database aggregator serving libraries around the world. EBSCO offers more than 200 research databases powered by EBSCOhost, the most-used, subscription electronic library resource. Health content from the NBC Digital Health Network has been incorporated into the EBSCOhost database Consumer Health Complete, a comprehensive resource for consumer-oriented health content. Consumer Health Complete is designed to help library patrons foster an overall understanding of health-related topics.

• redOrbit, one of the premier online destinations for space, science, health, and technology enthusiasts around the globe, will debut the Network's content on its site, which averages some 5 million unique visitors per month.

• StayHealthy, a leader in developing and marketing products and services that empower consumers to screen, monitor and improve their health, will align its technologies to include health video from the Network to its health kiosks on college campuses and in gyms.

• Wellsphere is a consumer health website that connects users with comprehensive expert knowledge and community support for their specific health needs. Wellsphere's "WellPages," which will feature health video from the Network, are personalized web-pages that connect people with the best knowledge on any health topic from the most trusted institutions, top medical experts and patient opinion leaders.

• Windstone Communications provides an out-of-home network programming solution through MD Outernet (www.mdouternet.com), a digital signage network placed in medical waiting rooms to provide health and wellness information and lifestyle programming to patients before they begin their appointments. A fully digital network, MD Outernet is frequently updated with new patient education programming and will run a loop featuring videos from the NBC Digital Health Network.

HealthVideo.com houses close to two thousand videos, and their other distribution partners include Healthline Networks, a leading provider of intelligent health information services for more than 18 million consumers a month; RightHealth, a comprehensive one-stop resource for high quality content with some 6 million users; Wellness Wireless, a distributor of rich content on cell phones through personalized health and wellness applications; NCC Spot Cable, which will launch a free VOD consumer health and wellness channel called MyLife on Demand; eTAGZ, a digital media marketing company that owns the patent on the process of attaching digital media to products at retail; and Family Marketing, a leading interactive direct marketing agency that provides comprehensive information on pregnancy and children's health.

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SteadyHealth

2009-01-23T09:39:00.003-05:00

London-based LifeForm is the firm behind SteadyHealth:

THEIR DESCRIPTION: SteadyHealth.com presents a health-related internet community intended for users to educate themselves on health related aspects, share their experiences and exchange access to valuable health-related resources. SteadyHealth.com include a lot of additional features such as ability to Find a Doctor in your area with just a few clicks, or to educate yourself and learn specific medical terms using SteadyHealth Encyclopedia. This unique paradigm of user interaction and quality information joined with a social-community manner puts SteadyHealth at the top of most valuable health-related communities on the Web. SteadyHealth.com is not indented to be used by health-concerned users only, but also for everyone else whose goal is to improve own life style and self-satisfaction.

This web site is powered by LifeForm Inc., an International Business Company that is not affiliated with any medical or drug organization. Therefore the mainstream information presented on SteadyHealth.com is unbiased.

Consider the vast audience this eHealth site you've-perhaps-never-heard of has aggregated:

eHealth is stalled a bit on the surface, sure, because B2C advertising on the web has gone sideways. But beneath the surface there's plenty of activity, from firms in the US and outside, with new models percolating by the day.

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Online Coaching

2009-01-19T15:05:00.006-05:00

We're intrigued by Online Coaching in eHealth.

There's ReliefInsite, a site that allows people to map, monitor and analyze their pain, Pharma Surveyor, which helps people understand and personalize their medication regimens. And MiLife, which just spun out of Unilever with some funding:

From their site-- MiLife is a personalised online coaching system that tracks your actual progress, gives you feedback and encouragement, and delivers great results.

It is constantly learning and adapting to you. The result is an flexible, personalised plan covering nutrition, activity and exercise.

MiLife is different because it works with busy lifestyles.

Many people sign up for gyms and don’t go. Diets fail. 8/10 MiLife members stick with us and are satisfied – it worked for them, it can work for you.

ReliefInsite has two patents; here's the abstract from #6,529,195:

A method of obtaining information from a user connected to a pain-tracking computer through a computer network is provided. A user graphically indicates pain intensity, the location of the pain, and provides input on selected information and/or questions and transmits it to the pain-tracking computer. The pain intensity and location information correspond to pain experienced by the user during different time periods. The pain-tracking computer then creates a color-coded video displaying the pain information.

Of course all the self-respecting Online Coaching players in eHealth are creating iPhone apps, too. But the larger question is (as always) how do they build audience, and how do they monetize it? Better, how to they find positive arbitrage (CPA less than LTV)?

The winners will not roll out features ad nauseam (see PHR phase I), but will unfurl cost-effective distribution instead....

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EMR: Reducing Medical Liability Risk?

2009-01-15T10:07:00.003-05:00

EMR adoption is mostly stalled, despite some interesting new SaaS offerings. But now in addition to health care quality and safety improvements, doctors may have an added incentive to invest in electronic health records: reduced medical liability risk and costs.

Doctors with enabled EMR were found to have fewer incidences of paid medical liability claims or settlements, according to a survey of 1,140 Massachusetts physicians published in the Nov. 24, 2008, Archives of Internal Medicine. The report was funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative.

The report says that 6.1% of doctors who implemented an EMR system had paid liability claims, compared with 10.8% of physicians who paid claims but did not use electronic records. In addition, 5.7% of doctors who more actively employed such systems reported a closed claim, compared with 12.1% who used EMRs less frequently.

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Adviware's Two Properties

2009-01-11T19:36:00.009-05:00

Here's a company you've never heard of-- Australia-based Adviware. The company has focused on providing free mainstream, factual health information and original content since 2002, and owns WrongDiagnosis.com and CureResearch.com.

WrongDiagnosis.com, especially, wracks up a vast audience:

WrongDiagnosis.com has about 780,000 documents online that speak to 3,000 diseases and 2,000 symptoms, and monetization comes from Google AdSense [see their case study here].

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PatientsLikeMe

2009-01-07T10:00:00.008-05:00

Cambridge, MA-based PatientsLikeMe landed funding, as did so many eHealth firms, in 2007 (February)-- $5 million in an "A" round.

How are they doing? Quantcast.com has them at some 66,000 visits per month, from 35,000 unique users. Compete.com's data matches this, and indicates about 12 pageviews per visit.

So that's 825,000 pageviews per month. So now simple CPM math can tell us the story, or eCPM (Effective CPM) if PLM has CPC/CPL/CPA ad models.

At $10.00 CPM, this is ... $8K per month. At $20.00 CPM, it implies about $16K/month. That said, in clicking around as a non-registered user, and as a registered user, we saw no ads-- very atypical.

From their FAQ:

... we have chosen not to pursue an ad-based business model right now. We want to preserve the sanctity of our user experience. Our business is based on aggregating anonymized information to provide insights to industry partners derived from the shared real-world experiences of our patient members.

With 10 or so employees/contractors, the cash burn rate should be about $2 million per year, all told, for a company of this type. Thus, there is likely the need to raise more money soon, unless the company's efforts in aggregating data that payers, providers and industry can use to create products and services that improve the lives of patients is yielding outsized revenue.

Again, from their FAQ:

We take the information patients share about their experience with the disease, and sell it in a blinded, aggregated and individual format to our partners (i.e., companies that are developing or selling products to patients). These products may include drugs, devices, equipment, insurance, and medical services. We do not rent, sell or share personally identifiable information for marketing purposes or without explicit consent. Because we believe in transparency, we tell our members exactly what we do and do not do with their data.

By selling this data and engaging our partners in conversations about patient needs, we're helping them better understand the real world medical value of their products so they can improve them. We are also helping companies accelerate the development of new solutions for patients. Our end goal is improved patient care and quality of life.

SUMMARY: We like this model, but we see everything through the prism of eCPM. In other words, if PLM has revenue of say $32K per month, given their pageviews? Then they're earning $40.00 eCPM, far in excess of any CPM that marketshare-leader WebMD is getting today.

eHealth is in need of some new monetization models; kudos to PLM.

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Proxense: Proximity Technologies

2009-01-05T09:24:00.004-05:00

Launching this month is Bend, Oregon-based Proxense.

From The Bend Bulletin in May of 2008:

It sounds futuristic, but imagine paying for your morning latte with a wireless wallet that never leaves your pocket. Instead of leaving cash or a card, all you leave at the counter is your fingerprint.

Or seeing a new doctor without filling out reams of redundant forms because your medical history was downloaded the minute you entered the office.

These are just two of the possibilities John Giobbi and associate Matt Davio have developed for technology Giobbi has patented: a secure, proximity-based wireless communication system that makes use of pocket-size transmitters to share personal or financial data.

Giobbi and Davio live in Bend and work for Proxense LLC, the private company Giobbi founded in 2001 to develop the technology.

As Giobbi and Davio envision it, their technology would allow people to load personal data onto a small microchip. It would be fitted to a battery and then placed in a small key fob (like many car owners use to remotely unlock their vehicles) they could carry in their pocket. The chip would be readable by merchants, health care providers or other users once the user comes within range of antennas in a store or office.

“This could be your virtual wallet, your keys and your identification,” Giobbi said.

The thing that makes Giobbi’s technology different from existing RFID, or radio frequency identification, technology already in use with magnetic key cards and electronic toll collection systems is a much greater range — about 300 feet compared with a few inches — and its use of biometrics and two-way communication in order to authenticate and encrypt transactions, Giobbi said.

RFID chips are small, inexpensive and not usually powered, Giobbi said. Without power, they can’t perform encryption functions, unlike Giobbi’s. Giobbi said he has filed more than 25 patents on his technology.

“It’s extremely secure,” Giobbi said. “The security is the major part of the technology’s development.”

Dr. Ryan Gallivan, a Bend-based ear, nose and throat doctor whose son plays basketball with Giobbi’s son, said his jaw dropped when he first heard about the technology. Gallivan said the technology, because it’s proximity-based, could automate a doctor’s office in revolutionary ways.

It could, for instance, end the need to fill out forms as the patient’s entire medical history would be stored digitally in their key fob. It also could be loaded onto a chip and imbedded in the identity bracelet a patient gets when he or she checks into a hospital.

Another prospective use is attaching a sensor to a computer, making it log a user on or off depending on whether the user is close to it. This is a big deal, Gallivan said, because the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act requires that his computer log him out after more than 60 seconds of inactivity.

With a key fob in his pocket that could authenticate him when he neared the computer, Gallivan said he would be able to resume working without having to waste time logging back in. Gallivan estimates he signs onto his computer at least 250 times a day.

“It’s an incredible hassle and waste of time,” Gallivan said.

The technology also could be put to work tracking equipment, supplies or even employees in a hospital, said Giobbi, all of which could be monitored in real time like air traffic.

“This revolutionary technology will only serve to enhance patient experience in the hospital and clinic setting,” Gallivan said. “It will optimize efficiencies, but most importantly, it will save lives and improve quality of care. I could foresee most patients, offices, providers and electronic medical records companies around the country utilizing this technology.”

Take a look at their four patents here, and especially note this one on Digital Rights Management issued 12/30/2008:

A method of managing digital rights comprises the following steps. First, a physical electronic key containing a first activation code is provided to a requesting user. Second, locked digital content is provided to the requesting user. The digital content is encoded with a second activation code associated with the first activation code. Third, the locked digital content is received in a playing device that reads the first activation code and determines whether the first activation code is associated with the second activation code. Fourth, the playing device is enabled to unlock and play the digital content if the first activation code is associated with the second activation code. A digital right management system for implementing the foregoing method is also disclosed.

US PATENT

7472280

John Giobbi/Proxense

Proxense is one to watch in 2009....

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CSI & TriSano

2009-01-02T10:03:00.004-05:00

Portland, Oregeon-based Collaborative Software Initiative (CSI) will be one of the most disruptive eHealth players in 2009.

Here's how they describe themselves:

CSI was founded in 2007 by Stuart Cohen, a veteran IT executive and former chief executive officer at the Open Source Development Labs. Cohen has partnered with Evan Bauer, financial services industry veteran and former chief technology officer at Credit Suisse, to bring together like-minded companies to build software applications at half the cost of outsourcing. CSI introduces a market-changing process that applies open source methodologies to building software collaboratively - software developed or acquired by a variety of companies at a fraction of internal developer or outsourcing costs.

CSI engages the power of community to build project teams and provides the central project management function for developing software collaboratively, including development, testing and support for the code. The CSI also offers the software to a broader base of customers under the open source licensing or Software as a Service (Saas) models.

For applications that don’t enable competitive advantage or are associated with non-value added activities such as compliance, collaboratively developed software allows business managers to maintain individual control and direction over a project while accelerating compliance, reducing costs and consolidating project timelines. CSI delivers on this new promise of collaboratively developed software - on time and on budget.

They have launched TriSano, an open source, citizen-focused surveillance and outbreak management system for infectious disease, environmental hazards, and bioterrorism attacks. It allows local, state and federal entities to track, control and ultimately prevent illness and death.

It is not an abstraction; you can download TriSano here and now:

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LifeScript

2008-12-28T14:03:00.005-05:00

Mission Viejo, CA-based LifeScript has about 60 employees, and is one of the fastest-growing online health publishers. This month, the firm indicated that their website has attracted more than 4 million unique visitors a month, an increase of 49% over the previous 12 months. Subscriptions to the company's six daily e-newsletters grew to 13 million during the same period, an increase of more than 98% since 2007.

LifeScript owns the 4th-largest independent health site and 10th-largest women’s online community. It was founded in 1999 as a single-product company selling customized vitamin plans. The following year, the company added meal replacement shakes and nutritional soy bars to its product line. At the same time, it forged strategic partnerships to promote and sell products to a broader audience.

In 2005, LifeScript shifted its business model to take advantage of the growth in online advertising and its increasing subscriber base. In late 2008, the company launched what they call LifeScript 2.0.

LifeScript is focused exclusively on women’s health. Written by leading physicians, nutritionists and health experts, the firm describes its content as--

"Unique and approachable, authoritative yet fun, and covers a range of topics that affect women’s health — from heart disease to heartbreak. LifeScript aims to help users achieve longer, fuller and more successful lives while helping women be their best at work, home and play. This unique approach has helped the company form a close bond with its audience, primarily women ages 30-50 who are proactively seeking healthy lifestyle information."

iVillage is the leader in women's health online-- yet LifeScript increasingly is becoming a formidable player in this space.

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RightHealth Surging

2008-12-23T13:15:00.002-05:00

Mountain View, CA-based Kosmix owns RightHealth, and it grew 156% year over year per comScore.

Thus the eHealth property is growing faster than the industry, which is moving ahead about 20% year-over-year.

RightHealth demonstrated year-over-year gains of 2.4 million unique visitors to 6.2 million unique visitors. Much of the growth is attributed to partnering, including with NBC Digital Health Network for health videos; FatSecret for diet and health content; MyDailyApple for medical journal information; Healthocrates for community-created medical content; FamilyDoctor for family health information; BodyMaps for 3D images; Topix for latest medical news; eMedTV for high-definition health videos; and MamaHerb for alternative medicine.

RightHealth offers consumers a 360 degree view of any health topic on the Web by integrating the best Web health applications for that topic into a single page. Consumers wanting to browse for topics from osteoporosis to juvenile diabetes discover videos, images, reviews, discussions and social networks, giving them all of the information they need to make a better informed choice about their health. The site also has a trusted sources section featuring expert opinions and research; and links users to products they can purchase for their health.

This month Kosmix announced it has landed $20 million in financing. The latest round was led by Time Warner, with existing investors Accel Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Dag Ventures also participating. In addition, Kosmix enlisted industry veteran and former Chairman and CEO of Motorola, Ed Zander, as a private investor and advisor to the company. He joins existing investors Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com and Bill Miller of Legg Mason. To date, Kosmix has raised $55 million.

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MEDx: Briding the Provider/Payer Gap

2008-12-18T09:27:00.001-05:00

Ogden, Utah-based MEDx uses its programming methodologies to provide front-end payer specific validation edits. MEDx goal is to reduce denials, decrease rejections and shorten accounts receivable cycles. Their software aims to maximize revenue potential by pre-screening claims for billing and coding errors and avoid delays. And MEDx offers providers the tools necessary to be their own clearinghouse.

Their product is called DirectConnectT, targeted at claims processors.

Per MEDx President John Sickles:

"Because of the multitude of costly inefficiencies (in terms of wasting resources both financial and human) built into this marketplace and the stated desires of both Payers and Providers to communicate directly with each other in order to tackle and correct these inefficiencies, there is a tremendous opportunity for us to help bridge the gap between Provider and Payer through this powerful, DirectConnectT application; which is in essence a clearinghouse on a disk. Providers can now re-gain control of their claims and greatly shorten problem resolution by establishing open communications directly with their Payers, all from software that can reside on their office PC or on that of an aggregator, vendor or billing service type surrogate.

While the current clearinghouse model has certainly served its purpose in the past and will continue to play some role in processing claims in the near future, the only cost effective way to contain the spiraling costs of providing and processing the business of healthcare must come through the adaptation of the advancements afforded all parties through cutting edge technology; that technology is now available.

Again, what the DirectConnectT application can offer is the power to give providers total control of their transactions, while fulfilling payers' desires to communicate directly with the provider community. We're talking not just claims, but claim status, acknowledgments, patient eligibility, ERAs, automatic secondary claims filing, referrals and claim attachments. We provide all the tools to enable principles in the process to become their own clearinghouse through our software that will integrate seamlessly with virtually any PMS."

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Health Insurance Guide for the Recently Unemployed

2008-12-16T08:25:00.001-05:00

HealthCare.com's HealthInsuranceFinders.com has publishee a "Health Insurance Guide for the Recently Unemployed."

Here's the release:

REDLANDS, CA (December 16, 2008) - In this tough economy many Americans are losing their jobs and are facing the unpleasant task of looking at alternative health insurance options. Not only can the loss of income be a serious financial challenge for most individuals and families, the loss of health care benefits can be devastating. Even in the midst of the mortgage and banking crisis, medical bills remain the leading cause of bankruptcy filings. Most financial analysts agree that in order to survive these tough economic times, maintaining health insurance coverage is crucial and should be a top ranking necessity just below the need for housing and food.

[full release here]

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Big MediKeeper Win

2008-12-13T08:39:00.001-05:00

Very big win for San Diego-based MediKeeper:

12/12/08: MediKeeper selected as a PHR Application Provider by Dossia

SAN DIEGO, Calif. and PORTLAND, Ore. – MediKeeper, a leading provider of software and technologies for patient and employee health, wellness, and adherence, has been selected as one of Dossia’s personal health record application providers. Dossia, a non-profit consisting of large U.S. employers, provides employees with access to, and control over their health information through personally-controlled health records (PCHRs).

As employers deploy Dossia’s personally-controlled health records, they can choose MediKeeper as an application for employees to view and manage their personal health information from multiple data sources. The software could be populated with patient data such as patient history, screenings, labs, medications and device data from Dossia’s existing technology platform.

Dossia enabled employees will subsequently have access to up-to-date health information through the MediKeeper application to make informed and preventative healthcare decisions. The MediKeeper application will enable this information to be conveniently shared with an employee’s healthcare provider, used to identify gaps in care or avoid medical errors, and made available in critical medical situations.

“MediKeeper is proud to meet the vigorous standards of Dossia and to be selected as one of its first personal health record application providers,” said Ryan Tarzy, President of MediKeeper. “Our organizations share mutual values of upholding privacy, portability, and patient-control. MediKeeper looks forward to working together with Dossia to break new ground in empowering employees through health and wellness information technologies.”

“Gaining access to health data is a difficult feat for consumers in today’s healthcare system. Dossia is dedicated to breaking down these barriers, and empowering employees to make smart health decisions,” said Rick Benoit, Director of Ecosystem Development at Dossia and Senior Program Manager at Intel. “We look forward to collaborating with innovative application providers like MediKeeper, who play an important part in this process and the development of the Dossia enabled ecosystem.”

Dossia’s infrastructure is open-source, and made available to personal health application developers, such as MediKeeper, who share a commitment to maintaining a consumer’s personal access to and control of health information. The infrastructure is designed to encourage vendor innovation for the benefit of patients and providers nationwide.

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23andMe: eHealth Bright Spot

2008-12-09T07:59:00.000-05:00

Time Magazine's Invention of the Year (one of fifty)? 23andMe. Read the release here.

And is personal genomics gaining traction, even in a down economy? Yes. Take a look at 23andMe.com's traffic chart--

SUMMARY: In a choppy year for Personal eHealth, the consumer genomics up-trend stands out. Look for 23andme and its competitors to further exploit elasticity in 2009, hitting price points south of $200.

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MyOptumHealth

2008-12-04T08:45:00.003-05:00

UnitedHealth Group, is stepping out further in eHealth with the launch of www.myOptumHealth.com - a comprehensive online resource to help consumers make more informed decisions regarding their health. It is elegantly designed, easy to navigate and well-positioned amidst the hordes of destination portals vying for eyeballs on the web.

Here's how they aim to differentiate it in the crowded online health portals space:

1. myOptumHealth.com has evidence-based information and is backed by a major U.S. health insurer.

2. Content is continuously reviewed and vetted among OptumHealth's network of accredited doctors and medical experts.

3. It provides current, medically sound content, including more than 10,000 originally-produced articles, 750+ videos and easy-to-use health management tools such as SymptomChecker, a Personal Health Record, Body Guide and a medically-guided search.

4. While complex medical information and jargon can be found on a lot of e-health sites, myOptumHealth.com appears to be written in layman's terms and is supplemented with more than 5,000 graphics.

SUMMARY: You know the old joke-- want to make a small fortune on the Internet? Start with a large fortune. Given the ongoing shakeout in eHealth (witness the recent distress sale of DailyStrength.org), only the big and the bold will survive. United Health is big-- it's up to the actors behind myOptumHealth.com to be bold in the frenetic Web 2.0 environment, where one can't just have a destination site that consumers go to ... the site has to go to consumers.

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Merck Unbound

2008-11-30T10:47:00.001-05:00

This press release grabbed our attention. Little Charlottesville, VA-based Unbound has partnered with Merck to unlock treasure troves of trusted health content.

We're noting that there's now plenty of eHealth info-- just not enough of the vetted, high credibility kind that is easy to access, comprehend and share.

Expansion of The Merck Manual Product Line Powered by Unbound Medicine

Writing, Editing, and Distribution Accomplished with End-to-End Digital Publishing Platform

Charlottesville, VA, November 20, 2008—Unbound Medicine, a leader in knowledge management solutions for healthcare, today announced the release of new “digitally born” products developed in partnership with Merck & Co., Inc. The new products extend The Merck Manual franchise with a new database focused on the assessment and treatment of patient symptoms. All phases of the project—from content design and writing through simultaneous release in multiple products and media—were powered by the Unbound™ Platform.

Because patients frequently present with symptoms rather than known conditions, the Merck Publishing Group determined that a concise, highly organized, and practical guide to patient symptoms would be useful to practicing physicians and trainees. Merck then chose the Unbound Platform and its editorial module, uPub™, to author and edit the new Merck Manual of Patient Symptoms because it supports web-based authoring, version tracking, and online management for geographically distributed author networks.

After editorial development was completed, the Unbound Platform was used to simultaneously output the content from uPub's XML repository for print composition and digital distribution, and to create integrated product bundles that link the new patient symptom data together with the classic Merck Manual. Using these product bundles on the Unbound Platform, end users can now access the integrated content using all major technologies of the day—iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Palm, or the web.

A comprehensive website, The Merck Manual for Web and Mobile, serves as the online destination for all subscribers and customers looking for Unbound products in the Merck Manual family. In addition to The Merck Manual, the site features the two new integrated product bundles:

The Merck Manual with Patient Symptoms Guide facilitates quick review of etiology, evaluation, and immediate treatment of presenting symptoms then links directly to the details of specific diseases.
The Merck Manual Suite + Davis's Drug Guide adds a comprehensive drug guide to the symptom and disease management resources described above for a complete point-of-care solution.

“We chose Unbound's web-based system, uPub, to create, edit, maintain, and deliver The Merck Manual of Patient Symptoms digitally, both for the print book and the electronic products,” explained Robert S. Porter, MD, editor of The Merck Manual and The Merck Manual of Patient Symptoms. “Unbound customized the system to reflect both the organizational structure we designed for our content and the workflow we needed. Members of our team found writing and editing in uPub to be straightforward and intuitive.”

“The Merck Manual of Patient Symptoms is the perfect addition to the comprehensive diagnosis and management information provided by The Merck Manual,” said Bill Detmer, MD, president of Unbound Medicine. “It provides an entry point where physicians or trainees can quickly confirm the most likely diagnoses, then navigate via web or mobile to more detailed information to answer clinical questions that arise at the point of care.”

For free trials of web and mobile or to learn more about the Merck Manual products offered by Unbound Medicine, visit www.unboundmedicine.com/merckmanual.

About Unbound Medicine
Unbound Medicine, Inc. (www.unboundmedicine.com) develops next-generation knowledge management systems for healthcare. The company's handheld, wireless, and web-based technology platform and its information architecture services provide healthcare professionals with advanced systems for acquiring, managing, and sharing knowledge.

About Merck
Merck & Co., Inc. (www.merck.com) is a global research-driven pharmaceutical company dedicated to putting patients first. Established in 1891, Merck currently discovers, develops, manufactures, and markets vaccines and medicines to address unmet medical needs. The Company devotes extensive efforts to increase access to medicines through far-reaching programs that not only donate Merck medicines but help deliver them to the people who need them. Merck also publishes unbiased health information as a not-for-profit service.

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Cyberchondria

2008-11-25T13:49:00.001-05:00

Over 60 million U.S. adults are Health 2.0 consumers (some 30% of U.S. Netizens) -- making use of health blogs, online support groups, prescription rating sites, and other health-related social media applications, according to pharmaceutical and healthcare market research company Manhattan Research's Cybercitizen Health™ v8.0 consumer study and strategic advisory service.

The number of Health 2.0 consumers has doubled over the past year. The study also found that a consumer's condition, as opposed to just age or gender, is an essential factor in his or her likeliness to engage in health-related social media. The more chronic the condition of the consumer or his/her family member or friend, the higher the usage. And of course, the last 10 years has seen a precipitous increase in chronic conditions.

On November 24th, 2008, Microsoft researchers published the results of a study of health-related Web searches on popular search engines as well as a survey of the company’s employees.

Not surprisingly given the ease with which one can find health info of various levels of credibility and trustworthiness, the study suggests that self-diagnosis by search engine frequently leads Web searchers to conclude the worst about what ails them. Here's the whole NY Times article.

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Disruptive Force in EMR: Practice Fusion

2008-11-21T09:15:00.000-05:00

Practice Fusion has launched the Instant Physician Network and has signed one of the largest physician groups in Chicago, Ravenswood Physician Association.

Instant Physician Network gives large physician groups instant visibility into all of the physician and patient data in their community in a short time, by distributing an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) platform to physician practices at no cost.

There are two components to Instant Physician Network:

1) Practice Fusion can distribute EMR to hundreds of physicians at no cost;

2) Practice Fusion can give groups instant access to all of the key physician and patient data which can be used to drive better health methodologies for patients with chronic conditions.

Aggregating data from multiple practitioners traditionally costs many thousands of dollars, takes months-to-years to implement, and is too often unsuccessful. Practice Fusion seeks to eliminate this integration completely by distributing a free, centrally-hosted model.

Ravenswood Physician Association has signed an exclusive distribution deal with Practice Fusion. The goal is for all of their physicians to have this EMR platform deployed by the end of this month, at which point Ravenswood will have instant, real-time access to their entire community's data.

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Perot Gets Tellurian

2008-11-18T15:33:00.000-05:00

Plano, Texas-based Perot Systems Corp. has acquired physician software remote hosting vendor Tellurian Networks Inc., Newton, N.J., for an undisclosed sum.

Tellurian does not actually sell or resell practice management and electronic health records software. Rather, its customers are six physician software vendors and 26 resellers of these same vendors. The company provides hosting services for 94 physician clients, such as practices or independent practice associations, at 565 locations representing 13,000 physicians. It will continue to operate facilities in Newton and Los Angeles.

This will only accelerate the EMR SaaS move....

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webLAB

2008-11-13T18:25:00.001-05:00

Here's Brent Blue's bio:

Brent Blue MD is the founder of DocTalk, Inc, which comprises the Dial-a-Doc network and the Physicians Wellness Network. He serves as President and Medical Director and is focused on the clinical integrity of the services and relationships for PWN. Dr. Blue received his B.A. from Vanderbilt University and M.D. from the University of Louisville. His completed his postdoctoral training at the University of California-San Francisco and is Board Certified in both Family Practice and Emergency Medicine.

Brent has extensive clinical experience practicing family and tourist medicine in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He has kept his emergency medicine skills current by part time affiliations in San Jose, San Francisco, and Chicago. Dr. Blue has written multiple articles and is a frequent lecturer, particularly in the areas of hypoxia, cold injuries, and aviation medicine. His faculty appointments have been with UC -SF and the University of Utah.

Brent founded the network with the goal of reducing barriers to health care for the individual consumer. The Dial-a-Doc network was the first 24/7 health information service staffed by board certified doctors. The concept was based on Dr. Blue's belief that everyone should have a "friend" that is a doctor who they can call on anytime for information. The Physicians Wellness Network extended that concept to make screening laboratory services easily available to everyone.

This graphic speaks to his latest offering, a web service that connects consumers with lab services:

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60 million

2008-11-10T20:00:00.003-05:00

NEW YORK, NY – November 3, 2008 – Over 60 million U.S. adults are Health 2.0 consumers – reporting to use health blogs, online support groups, prescription rating sites, and other health-related social media applications, according to pharmaceutical and healthcare market research company Manhattan Research’s just released Cybercitizen Health™ v8.0 consumer study and strategic advisory service. The number of Health 2.0 consumers has doubled over the past year. The study also found that a consumer’s condition, as opposed to just age or gender, is an important factor in his or her likeliness to engage in health-related social media.

The whole press release is here.

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MedLEE by way of NLP/Columbia University

2008-11-07T08:00:00.001-05:00

NLP is a Connecticut based firm with natural language processing technology that automatically extracts and encodes medical information from medical records.

It was developed by Columbia University.

From their recent press release:

In an exclusive global license agreement between Columbia University Medical Center and NLP International Corporation, the patented MedLEE™ program will be brought to market after years of testing by researchers in the academic community as well as government and industry.

“MedLEE™ has been used in the academic community for many years to develop clinical applications that have been shown to improve the quality of health care,” said Carol Friedman PhD, Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University, who developed the technology. “I am excited that this technology will now be more broadly available to hospitals and other health care organizations, where it can continue to contribute in many ways to improve patient care.”

Millions of dictated and typed medical reports once required a laborious and time-consuming process of data entry and manipulation, where highly trained and expensive experts manually culled the needed information. The MedLEE™ technology does away with much of this work, automatically extracting and encoding relevant clinical information. Once encoded, the information is easily available and accessible for further clinical processes like billing, reimbursement, quality assurance analytics, data mining and others.

“MedLEE™ is considered by many in the field as the gold standard for unstructured medical text processing, but has not been available as a commercial, enterprise-ready product,” said Donna See, Director of Strategic Initiatives for Columbia’s Office of Science and Technology Ventures, which brokered the deal. “We are very pleased to be partnering with NLP International to introduce MedLEE™ to these markets.”

MedLEE™ has been successfully tested by large hospital systems and government agencies, including the New York Presbyterian Hospital, the National Cancer Institute and the U.S. Department of Defense. Several pharmaceutical companies and healthcare information system vendors are currently evaluating it.

“A significant proportion of the huge amount of health care data resides in the form of unstructured, natural language text and the amount of that data is growing dramatically,” said Bernie Keppler, founder and chief executive of NLP International. “Ready access to this information is critical to improving quality and access to health care.”

Robert Sideli, M.D., Chief Information Officer at Columbia University Medical Center, said the already widespread deployment and use of MedLEE™ throughout the research and healthcare communities prove the system’s future commercial success.

“It will contribute substantially to higher efficiency in the EMR industry due to its superior functionality in medical data extraction, coding, analytics and data mining.” Sideli said.

David Lerner, who oversees new ventures for Science & Technology Ventures, said the university has found the right partner in NLP International. “This venture will add to the many successful technology spin-off ventures for which Columbia University is known” Lerner said.

Columbia University Medical Center provides international leadership in basic, pre-clinical and clinical research, in medical and health sciences education, and in patient care. The medical center trains future leaders and includes the dedicated work of many physicians, scientists, public health professionals, dentists, and nurses at the College of Physicians & Surgeons, the Mailman School of Public Health, the College of Dental Medicine, the School of Nursing, the biomedical departments of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and allied research centers and institutions. Established in 1767, Columbia's College of Physicians & Surgeons was the first institution in the country to grant the M.D. degree and is among the most selective medical schools in the country. Columbia University Medical Center is home to the largest medical research enterprise in New York City and state and one of the largest in the United States.

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CodeRyte

2008-11-05T07:31:00.000-05:00

CodeRyte, based in Bethesda, MD, just reeled in new funding:

Oct. 31, 2008—CodeRyte, Inc., the healthcare industry’s fastest growing computer-assisted coding and Natural Language Processing (NLP) company, announced today that a new investor, Versant Ventures, joined its existing group of investors providing $13 million of expansion capital to the company.

CodeRyte’s NLP technology and Web-enabled workflow software appropriately strengthens reimbursement, reduces denials and decreases outstanding account receivables while improving the efficiency of its rapidly growing client base that includes 30 of the nation’s most prestigious academic medical centers, 30 leading billing companies and 50 leading physician practices. CodeRyte’s technology excels at navigating through complex and compliance-sensitive medical records.

"Versant looks for companies offering unique products and services that deliver significant value to physicians, hospitals and other healthcare organizations,” said Barbara Lubash, co-founder of Versant Ventures. “We are impressed with CodeRyte’s track record in improving the speed, cost, accuracy and quality of coding for its clients, and its future potential to revolutionize clinical data management.”

“In this difficult financial environment, raising this capital on attractive terms is a testament to the scale of the healthcare IT market opportunity and CodeRyte’s compelling product,” said Bryan Roberts, managing general partner of Venrock, a lead investor in CodeRyte.

The expansion capital from Versant Ventures and other nationally recognized venture firms comes as CodeRyte surpasses more than 115 clients. WinterGreen Research reported this quarter that CodeRyte is winning “the majority of the deals in the market” and the company’s strict adherence to compliance regulations is one of the primary drivers of that new business. Clients, particularly those in the academic setting, continue to validate CodeRyte’s compliance protocols as a key factor in their decision. The market is showing a clear preference for CodeRyte and the additional capital enables the company to increase its already substantial growth rate by investing in additional staff and technology to better serve current and future clients.

“Versant Ventures brings a deep understanding of healthcare and will help CodeRyte continue to build on its dramatic and cost-effective value propositions,” said Andy Kapit, CodeRyte chief executive officer. “The Versant team did its homework during this process: interviewing clients, meeting with CodeRyte’s compliance lawyers and making sure our technology ensures compliance and security. Everyone at CodeRyte is proud to have such a prestigious firm invest in CodeRyte.”

The firm has web-based software that helps healthcare providers bill right and get paid fast. And VC Versant has deep domain expertise in healthcare.

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PHR from MedHelp

2008-11-02T11:26:00.003-05:00

We received this note from MedHelp:

Personal Health Records (PHR)

Have you ever filled out pages and pages of forms at the doctor's office that asked for very specific information regarding dates, diagnoses, medications, dosages and various other questions about your medical history? MedHelp's Personal Health Records (PHR) product is a free online service that puts you in charge of your health by storing and managing your medical records and health information online in one safe, secure place. You can easily provide your doctors and healthcare providers with accurate, comprehensive information when needed. Stay healthy.

- MedHelp team www.medhelp.org

SUMMARY: The problem with PHRs to date? Flat, dry, reactive. The fastest growing part of eHealth is COMMUNITY. People want to be ... inspired. They want to connect to like-others, and experts. They yearn to be proactive about their maladies. MedHelp is the best at health-connecting, and the fact that they've added a PHR capability must drive fear into the hearts of the PHR pure players.

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mHealth

2008-10-30T08:40:00.000-04:00

We're seeing the rise of mHealth-- health info et al via your mobile phone.

DC-based Voxiva is an emblematic player in the space:

Founded in 2001, Voxiva is a leading global provider of mobile centric information solutions. Our solutions let clients collect and analyze real-time data from the field, communicate and interact with their staff and clients more effectively. Our solutions leverage the world's 3.5 billion mobile phones as well as fixed phones, PCs, PDAs, the web and other technologies for a much broader reach than Internet-only solutions.

Working with partners, Voxiva has developed a series of standard solutions in the Health, Public Sector and Enterprise segments designed to support clients' critical information flows.

All Voxiva solutions are built on our mConnect Services Platform and provided as a hosted managed service. By leveraging the existing mConnect platform and our library of standard solutions, clients can enjoy quick and cost effective deployments.

The mConnect Services Platform includes:

Open, Flexible Software Platform
24x7 Application Management, Network Monitoring & Customer Support
Robust & Secure Hosting Infrastructure
Global Network and Communications Services

Voxiva works with a broad range of Telecom, Technology, Channel, Global Health and Global Development Partners to deliver these solutions.

Voxiva has offices and operations in 13 countries in Asia, Africa, North and South America.

SUMMARY: eHealth players must include mobile phones in their distribution strategies, at the same time mobile phone advertising seems to be growing rapidly off a small base. Will eHealth lever the high CPMs of mobile advertising to keep services free, without hampering the user experience? We believe the answer is yes.

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More Acquisitions: HealthMedia, DDC & UpToDate

2008-10-27T14:32:00.003-04:00

A torrent of acquisitions is underway in eHealth, given that valuations are down:

o New Brunswick-based Johnson & Johnson Acquires HealthMedia

New Brunswick, N.J. -- Johnson & Johnson has acquired HealthMedia, a privately held, Michigan-based developer of “web-based behavior change interventions.” HealthMedia combines IT and behavioral science to emulate a health coach through the web. Its interventions provide automated web-based coaching for wellness, disease management, behavioral health, and medication adherence with proven outcomes, increased compliance, reduced medical use and increased productivity, according to the announcement. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

o DNA Diagnostics Center Purchased by a PE Firm

(New York, N.Y.) MTS Health Investors, a healthcare private equity firm has purchased DNA Diagnostics Center. Based in Ohio, the company provides human DNA identification testing for the private sector; it lives in the corporate side of the 23andme.com space. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

o UpToDate Acquired by Wolters Kluwer

Waltham, Mass. – UpToDate, a privately held provider of evidence-based clinical information for physicians’ use at the point-of-care, has been acquired by Wolters Kluwer, a multimedia company based in the Netherlands. UpToDate’s editorial board of more than 3,800 authors, editors, and peer reviewers write and update more than 7,400 topics addressing questions that arise in clinical practice. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

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Online Doctor Appointments

2008-10-20T17:10:00.005-04:00

Take a look at the graph above, it's San Francisco-based JustAnswer.com. And that's a substantial audience.

They have a sub-site in the booming virtual health field, and when we logged on there were fourteen (14) experts -- doctors -- ready to handle questions online for a small fee.

SUMMARY: A growing wedge of medical appointments will move from face-to-face to over-the-phone and/or online, with and without accompanying video. JustAnswer is an early pioneer in this booming space, along with firms like TelaDoc, SwiftMD and Doctors on Demand.

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More Acquisitions: HealthCare.com Buys BrokersWeb

2008-10-16T08:08:00.009-04:00

HealthCare.com has acquired BrokersWeb.com, a health insurance pay-per-click marketing platform.

In addition to operating the BrokersWeb health insurance pay-per-click (PPC) platform, BrokersWeb also owns and operates HealthInsuranceFinders.com, a consumer health insurance website and search engine for health insurance quotes.

Headquartered in Redlands, CA, BrokersWeb provides its more than 250 advertisers the most-targeted source of PPC advertising generated from consumer health insurance queries.

BrokersWeb’s proprietary technology allows its advertisers to bid for placement to their paid listings and pay on a per-click basis. In addition, BrokersWeb provides advertisers with additional online conversion tools such as a ROI analytics, bid transparency and branded lead generation micro-sites.

The main distribution outlet for BrokersWeb’s sponsored search results is its consumer portal HealthInsuranceFinders.com. Launched in 2001, HealthInsuranceFinders.com provides consumers with information about purchasing and understanding the complexities of health insurance, along with a search tool to find health insurance quotes from multiple brokers and agents.

BrokersWeb will become an operating division of HealthCare.com, and will anchor HealthCare.com’s Health Insurance Search business.

SUMMARY: Given the global economic downturn, acquisitions in the eHealth arena (e.g., HealthGrades purchase of WrongDiagnosis this week) will surge, as a function of venture capital drying up, lower seller valuations, and companies seeking a better opportunity to monetize their pageviews by virtue of having more avails in combination with other properties.

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WeAre.Us

2008-10-14T15:02:00.004-04:00

PHRs are having trouble moving from trial-to-adoption. But COMMUNITY sites are booming, if proving hard to ad-monetize.

Said another way, what sick folks (and their families) most want to do in eHealth is connect with other similarly challenged folks, and connect with experts.

WeAre.Us is a platform of 16 social networks that tether together people with chronic illnesses.

Their description:

Patient-led, positive, and private health communities dedicated to patients, family, friends, and caregivers of those coping with chronic, life-shaping illnesses and conditions.

Browse, share, and discuss Journals, Photos, Videos, Events, Polls, and Research. Participate in discussions and live chats.

WeAre.Us is a lot like PatientsLikeMe in terms of focusing on the chronically ill. It's also similar to Health Central Network-- separate sites with individual domain names. The subsites, such as WeAreFibro.org (for users suffering from fibromyalgia, a chronic pain disorder) or WeAreLupus.org (for those living with Lupus), sit atop the same shared, foundational content management engine but are independent and separate from each other.

WeAre.Us seeks microsites where at least 1,000 members can be expected. And the firm seems focused on helping to make these sites ACTIVE; think about how many (to name just one example) briefly torrid-than-becalmed Lyme Disease sites are hanging 'round cyberspace.

The site’s 16 social networks have a full sponsorship model revenue scheme (one sponsor per site per month) and an important lead generation system: WeAre.Us collects anonymized health data from its users and sells it to pharmas.

The user base is growing fast off a tiny base: 35% month-over-month growth (should pass the 10,000 member mark this month), with each member spending an impressive two hours on the site per visit.

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Pocket Health Devices

2008-10-12T09:40:00.006-04:00

Consider two similar concepts: FitBit and EasyBloom.

We see a panoply of similar "pocket" tracking devices coming-- not so much for the health of your plants (though it's insidiously brilliant; 12% of Americans consider themselves GARDENERS), but for personal health.

The drivers are threefold:

The low cost of these devices-- $99 for the small FitBit module represents substantial elasticity. EasyBloom is $59.95.
The ease with which one can upload data and get meaningful analysis in real-time.
Integration into personal health records (this is a major opportunity for the HealthVaults et al, we bet FitBit's phone is ringing off the hook).

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Meds Microsites

2008-10-10T07:23:00.005-04:00

A sweet spot of eHealth advertising remains pharma sites that highlight individual drugs, like the tightly engineered www.purplepill.com from AstraZeneca. Here's the year-over-year Q2 rankings from comScore.

Think of these sites as display ad landing pages:

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COMMUNITY Audiences Compared

2008-10-08T12:52:00.007-04:00

It's time to check in to see who is winning in the COMMUNITY sector of eHealth.

CarePages is owned by now Waterfront Media (merged with Revolution Health).

THCN is creating more heat than light so far, despite big VC$ behind them. The below graph is also here.

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SwiftMD: Virtual Emergency Medicine

2008-10-05T18:36:00.006-04:00

Here's a highly disruptive player in the Virtual Appointments space we like.

SwiftMD, an Arlington, VA-based telemedicine start-up, has launched its new web- and phone-based medical diagnosis service, which exclusively features board-certified emergency medicine physicians who can diagnose and treat non-critical healthcare problems.

The company founder is Elliot Justin, an emergency medicine physician.

The firm promises to provide a phone consultation with an emergency medicine physician within thirty (30) minutes of a member's initial request. Physicians can then order lab tests and prescribe and refill medications as well as facilitate follow-up care with an ER, specialist or primary care physician. Later this year, the company also plans to roll out a bi-directional video consultation service. Enrollment fees start at $18.00 a person, with a $9.00 monthly membership and a $59.00 charge for each consultation. Apparently some insurance plans already cover such consultation costs, and we expect the plans allowing virtual appointments to surge in 2009.

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2 + 2 = 5? Waterfront & Revolution Health

2008-10-03T13:21:00.004-04:00

Waterfront Media and Revolution LLC's Revolution Health Network agreed to merge, creating a more formidable foe for WebMD, which sits firmly in the #1 spot in eHealth.

Together they generate some 20 million unique users and three billion pages views a year. The company will operate under the name Waterfront Media, and comprise 24 eHealth websites.

In August-08, WebMD reported 48.4 million unique users per month and total traffic of 1.1 billion page views during the Q2, increases of 20% and 24%, respectively, from a year ago.

Waterfront Media Chief Executive & co-founder Benjamin Wolin will be CEO of the combined company, while Revolution Health Chairman and CEO Steve Case (co-founder of AOL) will join the Waterfront Media board along with another board member from Revolution Media.

Waterfront Media began in 2002, and its network of more than 20 sites includes EverydayHealth.com, WhatToExpect.com and SouthBeachDiet.com. Revolution Health, founded in 2007, operates sites such as RevolutionHealth.com, HealthTalk.com and CarePages.com.

OUR VIEW: Together, WM & RH will be far better at monetizing pageviews than either was alone. And to catch WebMD, it is not merely about audience, but wringing CPM out of ad impressions.

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Practice Fusion v 2.0 is Here

2008-10-02T09:18:00.004-04:00

San Francisco-based Practice Fusion has released the 2.0 version of their Electronic Medical Record (EMR) suite. The new offering makes good use of Adobe's Flash technology.

They're also the first EMR vendor to support the Google Chrome, Apple/Mac Safari 3, Mozilla Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 8 Browsers. PF is being used in 45 states, by nearly 2,000 users and represents one of the fastest growing EMR communities in the U.S.

PF's new EMR 2.0 includes features for patient demographic, diagnosis and medication management, vital gathering, SOAP note creation, along with integrated video-based training.

Launched in October 2007, PF is the first EMR to be offered completely free and web-based. Many docs were burned by EMR I, where turnkey software systems were found to be very expensive, overly complex and painfully difficult to integrate into their traditional workflows. Now EMR II is all about SaaS, and radically lower price points-- even free-- are being mapped by a new set of bold vendors like Practice Fusion.

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HealthiNation Scores $7.5 million

2008-09-30T21:43:00.005-04:00

NYC-based HealthiNation, a digital health video network, announced today that it has raised $7.5 million in its "B" round of venture capital, which was led by Intel Capital.

HealthiNation launched its multi-platform consumer health network in 2006. The company creates original, health-themed video programs that cover disease and condition education, along with patient stories, health tips, original series, and healthy lifestyle programs.

HealthiNation has distribution partnerships with cable companies and Internet media properties, including Yahoo, Comcast Cable, Cox Communications, Verizon, and US News & World Report.

Here's an example of one of their videos, on Arthritis.

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Personal Genomics

2008-09-29T12:27:00.004-04:00

Consider the Boston-based Personal Genome Project:

We believe individuals from the general public have a vital role to play in making personal genomes useful. We are recruiting volunteers who are willing to share their genome sequence and many types of personal information with the research community and the general public, so that together we will be better able to advance our understanding of genetic and environmental contributions to human traits and to improve our ability to diagnose, treat, and prevent illness. Learn more about how to participate in the Personal Genome Project.

The cost of genomic sequencing is tumbling fast, and is opening up a variety of new consumer eHealth services like 23andme (funded by a Google co-founder) and Knome.

Knome describes itself as follows:

Knome is the first personal genomics company to offer whole-genome sequencing and comprehensive analysis services for individuals.

Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, we work alongside leading geneticists, clinicians and bioinformaticians from Harvard and MIT to enable our clients to obtain, understand, and share their genomic information in a manner that is both anonymous and secure.

We are currently offering 20 individuals the opportunity to participate in our initial launch phase. By being amongst the first individuals in history to have their whole genome sequenced, these participants will help pioneer the emerging field of personal genomics.

Look for personal genomics to move from fad to phenomenon as new companies enter the fray and expand awareness with mostly web-based marketing and yet lower price points, and more data leads to more validity regarding risk analysis.

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MedHelp & Drugstore.com

2008-09-25T09:33:00.007-04:00

Here's the latest news from eHealth COMMUNITY titan MedHelp. They're the best at connecting sick people to each other, and (perhaps more importantly given the rise of virtual office visits) to experts.

=

DRUGSTORE.COM™ PHARMACY PARTNERS WITH MEDHELP TO ANSWER QUESTIONS ABOUT MEDICATIONS FOR FREE

Pharmacists from Leading US Online Pharmacy Will Personally Respond To Questions as MedHelp Launches its First Drug Information Forum

SAN FRANCISCO, CA and BELLEVUE, WA – September 24, 2008 – MedHelp (http://www.medhelp.org), the leading online health community connecting people to medical experts, information and shared experiences, and the drugstore.com™ pharmacy (http://www.drugstore.com/pharmacy) today announced a partnership to provide registered pharmacists to answer questions from MedHelp members. The new forum on MedHelp.org is called Ask-a-Pharmacist and is the first to focus solely on medications.

“Drug and treatment information is the 2^nd largest search category in health, only behind symptom searches,” said John de Souza, MedHelp CEO. “We are honored to be able to provide people with access to the highest quality drug and treatment information, leveraging the knowledge and experience of the pharmacists at drugstore.com.”

“drugstore.com pharmacists care about providing the best information to ensure safe and proper use of prescription and over-the-counter medications to improve people’s health,” said Ron Kelly, vice president, customer and pharmacy services, drugstore.com, inc. “Our pharmacists are looking forward to participating in the new forum, answering questions and connecting with the MedHelp online health community.”

This partnership brings expertise from drugstore.com registered pharmacists to MedHelp’s online healthcare community, the largest in the world with over 5.5 million unique visitors each month. MedHelp’s site connects visitors with each other and to the best healthcare experts in the world to get high quality medical information and share health-related experiences. This partnership further expands the list of MedHelp’s blue chip medical partners. People can now get information on MedHelp’s website on 200+ health topics from over 125 medical experts representing the world’s best medical institutions, including 9 of the Top 11 hospitals on the U.S. News & World Report "2008 America's Best Hospitals" list.

About MedHelp

MedHelp, with over 5.5 million monthly users, is the largest online health community site connecting people with shared medical experiences. MedHelp provides its users with access to advice from experts at the top medical institutions such as the Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins, National Jewish, Partners Health, drugstore.com, inc. and Mount Sinai. MedHelp members can access an online archive of millions of posts across hundreds of medical conditions. In addition, MedHelp offers personalized user accounts, information on health topics and treatments, and an extensive set of health tools to help users track and monitor various health conditions. For additional information, please visit http://www.medhelp.org.

About the drugstore.com™ pharmacy

The drugstore.com pharmacy (http://www.drugstore.com/pharmacy) is a leading online destination for prescription medication, information, and services. A broad selection of over 5,000 drugs is available with a verified prescription from a US licensed health care provider. Most insurance plans are accepted, customers not using insurance will find competitive pricing, and prescriptions can be delivered to all 50 states. The easy to use web store provides customers a secure and private shopping experience plus resources to safeguard their health such as the Drug Interaction Checker and the eMedAlert™ program. The drugstore.com pharmacy, operated by DS Pharmacy, Inc., is certified by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) as a Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Site (VIPPS) and complies with federal and state laws and regulations in the United States. DS Pharmacy, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of drugstore.com, inc. (NASDAQ: DSCM), whose portfolio of brands includes drugstore.com™, Beauty.com™, and VisionDirect.com™. In addition, drugstore.com offers a wide selection of nearly 40,000 over-the-counter products including medicine cabinet essentials, home medical equipment, vitamins and supplements, and products to support healthy lifestyles.

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Wellsphere News

2008-09-24T08:00:00.003-04:00

From the folks at San Mateo, CA-based Wellsphere ("Health knowledge made personal"):

We are introducing "WellPages," comprehensive, personalized webpages that connect people with the best knowledge on any specific health topic from more than 1,400 experts, doctors, patients, and healthy living professionals. WellPages are powered by our groundbreaking Health Knowledge Engine and proprietary consumer health ontology, which understands people's everyday health questions, instantly translates them into medical terminology, finds the most relevant, credible knowledge, and presents it all on a single, user-friendly page.

Today, the average user visits five websites to find information on a particular health issue they're facing, and more often than not, ends up overwhelmed and frustrated. WellPages save users time and frustration by eliminating the need to browse multiple websites that typically offer the same type of generic information. The collection of expert and patient knowledge found on WellPages enables users to get firsthand accounts of what it's like to deal with serious medical issues, hear from doctors and trusted institutions the inside scoop on handling difficult diagnoses and get personal advice from healthy living experts - all in one, easy-to-use page.

More than 2 million people per month are already benefiting from Wellsphere's breadth of content and personal support, and traffic to our site is growing fast. Our Health Blogger Network has quickly become the highest-quality, largest, and fastest-growing network on the web, with more than 1,400 of the top health writers on the Internet - including leading medical minds from Stanford, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Yale and other top Medical Institutions, as well as patient opinion leaders from around the world.

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GetWellNetwork

2008-09-22T12:14:00.003-04:00

We've started to watch Bethesda, MD-based, VC-backed GetWellNetwork.

Their self-description:

GetWellNetwork is the leading provider of interactive patient care solutions serving hospitals and healthcare organizations throughout the United States. Our team of professionals is committed to developing solutions that help hospitals and healthcare organizations transform the patient experience by bringing a host of education, entertainment and communications technologies to the bedside via hospital room television monitors. Our vision is unique. Our passion is genuine. Our experience sets us apart.

Simply put, GetWellNetwork is the only company that combines the power of technology, client service and commitment to improved outcomes to drive real results.

GWN is a developer of software, hardware and related services focused on interactive patient care, and they recently signed a deal with Adventist Health System-- they have 45 hospital partners in total.

Under the deal, the company will be the exclusive provider of interactive patient care for Adventist Health System's 37 hospitals across 10 states.

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ValueClick Launches Health Network

2008-09-18T10:27:00.006-04:00

Small eHealth sites struggle to monetize their pageviews-- but now there's a new ad network to join many others (Good Health Advertising, Revolution Health Network). What's different about it is it's from industry behemoth ValueClick (NASDAQ: VCLK):

ValueClick Launches Premium Health & Wellness Network

Targeting and potential reach of 20MM+ give edge to AdRx Media clients

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif., Sep 15, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- ValueClick, Inc. today announced it has launched AdRx Media, a premium health and wellness online advertising network with a potential reach of more than 20 million unique visitors per month, according to comScore Media Metrix.

AdRx Media is comprised of several well-known publishers, including Britannica Health, HealthGrades, Healthy.net, Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary, OrganizedWisdom.com, Wrong Diagnosis and more than 50 other high quality health and wellness information sites.

AdRx Media gives advertisers a way to reach consumers while they are engaged in seeking health information on more targeted sites beyond the largest health properties. For instance, according to comScore Plan Metrix June 2008 data, WebMD Health reaches only one in seven people who have searched for health information related to an ailment online and Everyday Health reaches only one in eleven.

"AdRx Media is filling an important gap by giving advertisers an efficient way to reach a more engaged audience as they seek information on focused health sites other than general health properties," said James Kiernan, vice president, group director at MediaVest. "Having a reliable partner to aggregate inventory on content related to all major health conditions is a service I expect media buyers in the health category will be very receptive to."

AdRx Media offers advertisers a convenient way to reach consumers as they go online to learn more about any health related issue, with complete transparency into the sites where their ads will appear. The extensive reach of AdRx Media provides several ways to reach any health-conscious audience via contextual placements alongside condition-specific content and other demographic, psychographic and technographic targeting capabilities.

"The response to AdRx Media among marketers and agencies during our initial charter period has been overwhelmingly positive," said Denise Zaraya, director, AdRx Media. "They recognize the value of targeting niche content with a partner that can guarantee quality, transparency, expertise and scale."

The network is managed within the ValueClick Media division in the U.S. and utilizes its advanced network technology and expertise. A dedicated account management and media development team works with a unique set of AdRx Media publishers and advertisers under the direction of Ms. Zaraya.

AdRx Media is exhibiting and Ms. Zaraya will speak on a panel entitled "DTC Advertising and New Media" at the PharmaMed conference in New Brunswick, New Jersey September 15-16. On September 18-19, AdRx Media will exhibit at the OMMA Global conference in New York, where Ms. Zaraya will lead a workshop on "Strategies for Maximizing Performance with Vertical Networks."

About AdRx Media

AdRx Media is an online advertising network specialized in providing custom solutions to health and wellness advertisers. AdRx Media aggregates condition-specific inventory across the Internet's top health and wellness publishers, which collectively reach more than 20 million consumers per month, giving advertisers the ability to reach all of their health targets in one single, transparent buy. AdRx Media is a product of ValueClick, Inc., and is operated by its ValueClick Media division in the U.S.

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WebMD Buys QualityHealth

2008-09-16T08:52:00.004-04:00

WebMD, the #1 eHealth firm in terms of audience and ad monetization, will buy QualityHealth.com and its owner Marketing Technology Solutions Inc. for $50 million. The deal could include up to an additional $25 million in cash if certain performance measures are met by the end of '09.

MTS had revenue of about $21 million in 2007, with a focus on marketing brands to consumers using targeted health data and information. QualityHealth.com has about 5.5 million visitors each month while WebMD reaches some 48 million visitors each month.

SUMMARY: Acquisition activity is accelerating as the top players are taking advantage of smaller valuations to buy at a cost less than building. And players like QualityHealth know that under a bigger banner their content pages will monetize at significantly higher ad rates (thus the earn-out component).

WebMD likely also sees the rise of performance-based ad units (CPC, CPL, CPA) in eHealth and aim to be an early leader there by virtue of the MTS domain expertise/experience.

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Athena Drives Deeper Into Patient-Dr Messaging

2008-09-11T13:29:00.003-04:00

MA-based athenahealth (NASDAQ: ATHN) has snapped up MedicalMessaging.net (now ReminderCall from athenahealth):

WATERTOWN, Mass., Sep 08, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- athenahealth, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATHN), a leading provider of internet-based business services for physician practices, today announced that on September 5th the Company completed its acquisition of the assets of Crest Line Technologies, LLC (d.b.a. MedicalMessaging.net). As originally announced on August 4th, consideration for the acquisition was $7.7 million in cash, a portion of which will be paid over time based on the achievement of certain milestones.

"We are extremely pleased to have completed the purchase of the MedicalMessaging.net business, since we have already begun to see the tremendous value that its patient communication services brings to our medical practice clients," said Jonathan Bush, Chairman and CEO of athenahealth. "Having begun the process of integrating the MedicalMessaging.net services into the athenahealth network, we feel this combined service offering will allow us to deliver value to medical groups in ways that are currently unavailable in the market."

Like athenahealth's electronic medical record (EMR), practice management and billing services, the MedicalMessaging.net services are on-demand, are centrally-hosted and enable automated and live call or e-mail communication services between patients and physician practices. Running off a web-based patient portal platform, these services allow physician practices to better communicate with patients regarding appointment reminders, test results, drug recalls, collections, prescription refills and other compliance driven initiatives. Designed as a service rather than as software functionality, the MedicalMessaging.net services augment medical practices' patient communications to improve practice revenue as well as patient care, satisfaction and compliance.

SUMMARY: We see an increasing share of appointment-setting and even appointments themselves moving to email/web/live chat. Athena is seeking to step out more smartly in the nascent space of what we call Med Messaging.

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