HealthContentAdvisors

Speeding Drug Safety Alerts

• Posted March 27th 2008
• by Russell

Medem, a for-profit company formed by the American Medical Association and several national medical societies, has just announced the launch of the Health Care Notification Network (HCNN). HCNN is a timely new initiative to send drug safety alerts to physicians via email as opposed to slower postal mail. Medem is operating this new service on behalf of a broad-based non-profit initiative called the iHealth Alliance.

Everything about this new undertaking seems smart and laudable. The only potential fly in the ointment is that because you can’t send email to physicians unless you know their email addresses, physicians need to enroll in the HCNN program. Enrollment is free, it’s been made clear the email messages will be free of advertising or promotional copy, and email addresses will not sold to third parties. Again, it’s all simple, smart and much-needed.

It’s good to see Medem getting itself involved in a project that’s high profile, non-controversial and practical. Medem’s charter was to create useful ecommerce services that would connect physicians and patients. Nobody could doubt the long-term need, but Medem’s launch at the height of the dot com bubble was inauspicious. Further, the novelty and sophistication of its ideas and offerings have tended to leave the company far out in front of its market. Selling cutting edge ecommerce platforms to a market that is hidebound, paper-based and notoriously cheap is tough work. However, with the market finally starting to catch up to Medem’s vision, its strategy may well be vindicated in the not too distant future. In the interim, Medem can burnish its image in the marketplace