HealthContentAdvisors

Archive for April, 2008

Alternative Healthcare Website Launches

• Posted April 30th 2008
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• by Marji

The Holistic Option Inc. this week announced the launch of a website that will serve as a source for consumers seeking information about alternative healthcare as well as practitioners and schools in their area. Consumers can use the site to educate themselves about holistic treatment options spanning 50 modalities, from acupuncture to massage therapy.

Access to the site’s content is free and includes natural remedies for treating specific ailments, as well as articles, videos, podcasts, discussion forums and shopping.

The Holistic Option has created a screening process to ensure the accuracy of practitioner information. To be listed on the site, practitioners must submit an application that is reviewed by The Holistic Option’s advisory board to ensure proper member certification and professional credibility in their specific practice. The site currently hosts practitioners and educational information in 25 modalities, but will add more than 25 additional modalities in the upcoming months.

The site has several advertising options, from banner ads to enewsletters and articles to podcasts.

Alternative healthcare is certainly of interest to many consumers, and perhaps such a site will help promote it and bring more prominence to this field. With a variety of content sources and formats, the site is certainly positioned for success. You can’t launch a site these days without videos and podcasts. Just plain text doesn’t make the cut anymore.

The listings of practitioners and schools will also help to add value–and credibility–to the site. It’s good to know that The Holistic Option plans to carefully screen listing practitioners before their information is posted. Having clean (and reliable) data from the start is crucial in developing such an enterprise.

 

Nielsen Ailment Panels Provide Valuable Consumer Insights for Clients

• Posted April 30th 2008
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• by Marji

NielsenHealth has launched 32 new ailment panels designed to provide manufacturers and retailers insights into consumer behaviors and attitudes toward diseases and medical conditions from which they suffer.

NielsenHealth’s ailment panels consist of 110,000 U.S. consumers who are suffering from one or more ailments that are tracked by Nielsen. These include allergies, obesity and cardiovascular disease. Each panel tracks panelists suffering from a particular condition through their actual purchases, demographics, and other facts related to conditions and treatments.

A press release announcing the launch of the panels noted that research related to allergies revealed that severe sufferers were considering OTC (over the counter) medication as a treatment option when they once preferred prescription medication. Such information is undoubtedly valuable to manufacturers and retailers who may, as a result, change their strategy and focus more on their OTC offerings.

This one example shows the potential power of this information, and how important it is for the long-term success of manufacturers and retailers. Their success hinges on them bringing the right products to the marketplace, and these ailment panels should prove to serve as an important partner in these companies’ future development. Consumers will also win. These panels will help ensure their voices are heard and that the market will yield the most effective remedies available.

 

Physician Transparency: Why the Angst?

• Posted April 24th 2008
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• by Russell

Last summer, a non-profit consumer advocacy group called Consumer’s Checkbook won a landmark victory in court: a U.S. federal court ordered the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to provide detailed Medicare claims data to the group. While containing no information that could identify individual patients, the data would allow a look at what types of procedures were being performed by individual physicians, and how often. In short, the data would provide an objective indicator of physician expertise. The reason Consumer’s Checkbook had to go to court for the information was that HHS had taken the stance that it couldn’t release this information because it would constitute an invasion of physicians’ privacy because it would indirectly allow anyone to calculate how much money a physician received from the government. The court shot down this argument and ordered release of the data.

One would expect that with HHS advocating at the highest levels for transparency in healthcare, and with a number of its own quality assessment and measurement initiatives, HHS might embrace this court ruling and get moving on this release of data. Instead, in a quiet court filing last week, HHS appealed this court decision. While HHS has publicly stated it is only seeking help from the court to reconcile several conflicting court decisions, published reports indicate its appeal filing with the court seeks to reverse the previous court decision, leaving restriction on disclosure of this information in place. Robert Krughoff, president of Consumer’s Checkbook, attributes this odd move by the government to pressure from the American Medical Association, stating “We regret that the AMA has pushed HHS so hard to hide this information.

Less than a month ago, the consumer ratings service Angie’s List announced that it would allow its consumer members to start rating physicians on everything from the cleanliness of waiting rooms to a physician’s bedside manner. The announcement immediately drew response from the physician community, including a fairly representative comment from Dr. Jon Marhenke, president of the Indiana State Medical Association, who said “doctors’ services to patients can’t be compared to the work of a skilled tradesman.”

All this points up an essential conundrum: physicians to a large extent seem to be resisting rating, evaluation and review at the exact same time that the move to consumer-driven healthcare is making this kind of information important if not essential. And this is not a new problem. For too long, patients have been selecting their physicians based on an awkward combination of word of mouth referrals, health plan participation and geographic proximity. That’s not good for patients, but what physicians apparently don’t see is that it’s not good for them either. By rejecting third party evaluation and review, physicians aren’t elevating themselves above the fray. Indeed, they are commoditizing themselves. By refusing to provide useful differentiation about their training, expertise, and yes, even their beside manner and office tidiness, physicians are telling patients “we’re pretty much interchangeable,” and leaving patient to select physicians based on criteria and information that can be highly subjective, biased, irrelevant and even inaccurate. There is a huge need for information to help differentiate physicians and this vacuum will be filled. And as every good marketer knows, if you don’t write your own story, others will write it for you, and you probably won’t like the results.

Physicians: market thyselves!

 

WebMD: No Immunity to Ad Pullback

• Posted April 24th 2008
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• by Janice

WebMD, the bellwether of the online health information sites, is suffering from ad pullback.  It was widely reported this week that WebMD has lowered its guidance for 2008 and its stock has been punished as a result.   S&P has downgraded the stock to a sell and cut its target price to $23.

Concern about lower-than-expected pharma advertising was a major factor in the downgrade.  But, WebMD is not entirely dependent on online ads for its revenue, which mitigates the financial picture. WebMD is also a leading provider of online continuing medical educations (CME) programs, and also provides private portals and custom publishing.

Some seem to relish bad news about WebMD and are quick to ascribe the slowdown in pharma advertising for WebMD to competition from newer players that offer less-costly ad alternatives. See, for instance, the comments in Silicon Alley Insider.  We firmly believe that ad dollars will continue to shift online.  However, the advertising sector is notoriously cyclical, and considering the current economic climate, the ad pullback is likely to prove contagious in the short term.

 

Medical Reality Shows for the Pros

• Posted April 23rd 2008
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• by Janice

I just took a look at the recently enhanced Procedures Consult, one of the online clinical reference products in Elsevier’s Consult line.  Procedures Consult builds on some of Elsevier’s medical reference texts and is supplemented with custom—produced animations and video content that enhance the textual and still-image content.

The videos offer step by step demonstrations on real patients of how to perform certain procedures, such as defibrillation or shoulder arthroscopy (the number of procedures continues to grow). Procedures Consult includes online testing that reinforces the understanding of the anesthesia, emergency medicine, orthopaedic and internal medicine procedures that are included in the reference tool.

This is a case where the addition of video content adds obvious value to the reference content, compared to some products where the video element consists of nothing more than talking heads. Even an amateur can appreciate how useful the video content will be to physicians and medical students who need to study new procedures or refresh their knowledge of infrequently used procedures.

Procedures Consult may not capture the imagination of the consumer-focused investment firms eager to pounce on ad-supported consumer-centric online health products, but it represents an intelligent application of technology that greatly enhances the value of information to the audience it serves. Furthermore, by virtue of highlighting industry-standard patient safety guidelines within the product, Procedures Consult becomes an important tool in the performance improvement efforts of hospitals. Performance improvement may not sound leading edge and exciting, but it represents real dollars to health care provider institutions and better outcomes for patients.

 

Availity, Health Market Science Expand Licensing Agreement

• Posted April 22nd 2008
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• by Marji

Availity LLC, a health information exchange, and Health Market Science Inc., a manufacturer of health care provider reference data in the U.S. announced an expansion to their licensing agreement. The previous agreement called for licensed information for select states. This new agreement with provide Availity access to information about more than 4.5 million individual providers and one million provider organizations across the U.S.

Customers of the Availity Health Information Network (a secure web portal) can now easily search provider profiles in the HMS Provider Master File (which contains the listings of the providers and provider organizations). They can also segment the data by contact information, demographics, specialty, education and ethnicity. HMS data can be integrated with customers’ existing provider information.

It just makes sense for these companies to deepen their alliance. Availity will most definitely benefit by being able to provide customers a more robust database in which to find information they need–and find it quickly. Having such data integrated into their workflow will undoubtedly improve the efficiency of Availity customers–and this is functionality that has become a must-have for most information providers today.

This more robust offering may serve to attract more customers to Availity, especially those seeking a seamless solution. HMS may also be able to attract more customers as a result, as it gains more exposure in the marketplace with its position within Availity’s platform.

 

Epocrates Files for IPO

• Posted April 18th 2008
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• by Janice

Epocrates, best known for its mobile clinical information decision support tools for medical professionals, filed a registration statement with the SEC yesterday.  The filing didn’t disclose terms, but it estimates that the company will raise at least $75 million in the offering.  Revenues for 2007 were $65.6 million, which represents a 33% increase over 2006.  However, elsewhere in the filing the company reports that growth in  subscriptions to US physicians was flat in the period.

Subscription sales to physicians and other healthcare professionals do not represent the only revenue stream for Epocrates.  They also provide “interactive information services” to pharmaceutical and managed care companies and offer physician panels to market research companies.  These additional sources of revenue allow Epocrates to provide free access to core drug reference and decision support databases, which helps them build loyalty among their user base. 

Epocrates has been in the news recently for creating iPhone-compatible versions of  its drug and clinical information products.  This development should help Epocrates maintain its cool factor among medical students and younger healthcare professionals. 

In a related development, news that UpToDate, a competitor to Epocrates, is on the market has been circulating.  We’ll fill in more details in an upcoming post.

 

Vertical Ad Networks Still in Experimental Phase

• Posted April 17th 2008
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• by Janice

The Health Central Network (THCN) and IAC’s Advertising Sales (IAC/AS) group announced the launch of a new health advertising network this week. THCN owns and operates a collection of healthcare-focused websites, with a core collection of disease-specific sites such as My Migraine Connection and My Allergy Network, which were either acquired or built. Owning the sites gives THCN the ability to impose common standards, tools, and interoperability among the sites and unites them under a single strong brand that appeals to advertisers that want to reach consumers who are seeking information about disease management and healthcare.

Health Central’s new agreement with IAC/AS now provides them with a strong vertical ad network in addition to substantial ad sales resources for serving the pharmaceutical industry. Furthermore, the relationship between IAC and THCN goes well beyond this cooperative ad network. IAC made a significant minority investment in THCN in January, which PaidContent.org has reported at $50 million.

Glam Media competes with THCN/IAC for the same pharmaceutical and health-related consumer product ad dollars, but with a different vertical ad network model. Glam, which raised an additional $85 million in February, has also assembled a substantial collection of related websites that in the aggregate attract tens of millions of visitors per month.  While THCN’s content is medically-focused, Glam’s network of sites is weighted more toward entertainment and lifestyle. But the key difference is that Glam does not own or operate most of the sites in their network. Instead they offer a range of advertising and marketing services to the affiliated publishers.

As the Web develops into a more mainstream advertising and marketing medium, both of these experiments bear watching. Advertisers and marketers will likely try out both, and success will go to whichever produces the best results.

 

The Rise of the New Intermediaries

• Posted April 10th 2008
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• by Janice

Intermediaries figure prominently in the theme of our Health Content08 conference this year. In essence all publishers are intermediaries. They assemble and distribute information. As a consequence, they build an audience of readers with a common interest in the topics that they cover. And, often, they serve as a market-maker for vendors that want to sell goods and services to that audience. This is especially true in the consumer publishing sector. 

With the avalanche of new health-related information comes an urgent need for publishers to interpret medical jargon for non-professional audiences, and this is giving rise to a whole new class of intermediary, one that functions in a similar fashion as today’s financial advisors function.

One such emerging class of healthcare intermediary is that of genetic counselor. Eye on DNA provides an interview with Elissa Levin, a genetic counselor at Navigenics a personal genomics company that is getting quite a lot of attention. Elissa describes her job as “working with people to help them understand complex information and what it means to them and to their family. This means staying on top of new technologies, research, risk communication strategies, and creating an infrastructure to provide accurate information responsibly”. The interview further explains the role of genetic counselor and how it relates to the burgeoning field of personalized medicine.

The current healthcare system is becoming ever more challenging to navigate. While information technology can be used to help organize data and make it more accessible, IT is also enabling the production of greater and greater amounts of data. Clearly, the role for intermediaries who specialize in understanding health information and can guide users to appropriate resources will be in demand – as advisors, counselors, information specialists/librarians, information architects, journalists, and some titles that haven’t been created yet. Look to meet many of them at Health Content08.

 

InfoCommerce Group Launches Consulting Practice for Health Content Industry

• Posted April 10th 2008
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• by Janice

The formal press release announcing Health Content Advisors follows:

PHILADELPHIA–April 3,2008 (BUSINESS WIRE)–InfoCommerce Group, Inc. (www.infocommercegroup.com) has launched a new division devoted to serving publishers of medical, life science and healthcare information. Health Content Advisors (www.healthcontentadvisors.com) will serve as both an industry connector and a source of knowledge and perspective on how to turn trends into opportunities.

“Despite the huge and growing need for healthcare information, the health content industry remains fragmented and compartmentalized,” says Russell Perkins, Founder and Managing Director of InfoCommerce Group. “Improving the flow of information among health content providers is itself an important part of building best of breed products that address both the business needs of the healthcare industry and the inexorable trend toward consumer-driven healthcare.”

Janice McCallum, an InfoCommerce Group Managing Director, will head the new practice. Health Content Advisors will continually monitor the shifts in information usage in all sectors of the healthcare market and will interpret these shifts and guide publishers in their current business as well as help them evaluate where new investment should occur. Janice’s blog, Health Content in Perspective, is issued every week and can be accessed at http://www.healthcontentadvisors.com/blog/

“Our perspective is unique,” McCallum says. “We are not IT-centric, not Web-centric, but rather take a holistic view of how quickly-changing supply and demand forces impact the content business. With our website, consulting engagements, and annual Health Content conference, we are becoming the epicenter for the re-invention of healthcare publishing.”

Health Content 08, our annual conference, will take place November 12-13 in Philadelphia. This year, in addition to providing context and clarity on how the health content industry is evolving, the event will include an afternoon forum for emerging companies on November 12 which will put a spotlight on those who are setting the standards for innovation in the industry.

ABOUT INFOCOMMERCE GROUP, INC.

InfoCommerce Group provides consulting and research to commercial database publishers. It publishes ICG Weekly Perspective. It produces the annual InfoCommerce Conference and the InfoCommerce Models of Excellence awards. More information is available at www.infocommercegroup.com, or by calling (610) 505-9189.

Bios of Russell Perkins and Janice McCallum can be found at: http://www.healthcontentadvisors.com/about/principal-bios

Contacts

InfoCommerce Group, Inc.
Media Contact:
Roxanne Christensen
610-505-9189
rchristensen@infocommercegroup.com