HealthContentAdvisors

Archive for the ‘Conferences’ Category

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

 

Consumer Health Sites Not for the Faint of Heart

• Posted March 21st 2008
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• by Janice

Steve Case, the keynote speaker at yesterday’s EconHealth seminar, and CEO of Revolution Health, used the phrase “not for the faint of heart” to describe the current environment for producing healthcare content for the consumer market. Chris Schroeder, CEO of the HealthCentral Network, repeated the phrase in the introduction to his opening panel. It’s an apt way of summing up the themes of the seminar that focused on the money flow in early-stage digital consumer health companies.

Case used the analogy of his experience getting consumers engaged in online communication at AOL and predicted that the time horizon spans 10 to 20 years before the full “sea change” occurs in the healthcare sector. Significant additional hurdles exist in the health market, which has a complex institutional structure with layers of agents that constrain consumer choice and behavior. The agents include employers who remain the primary payers of health insurance, the health insurance companies as payer-intermediaries between consumers and providers, and government agencies that create policy and regulations—and are also a major payer of healthcare services. Layers of constraints also exist for the physicians and other healthcare professionals who offer health services.

Still, Steve and other speakers did not present a gloomy future for health content start-ups and established healthcare publishers. There is overwhelming agreement that the US is moving toward a consumer-centric healthcare system and there are ample opportunities for companies that create innovative applications to improve the efficiency of healthcare consumption. But the timing of adoption by consumers is very difficult to predict, especially in an environment of constrained choice. Deep pockets help. And, it helps to have alternative sources of revenue to keep afloat while the “tectonic shifts” in healthcare settle. Without significant resources, the most likely future for most of today’s consumer health start-ups will be acquisition by a large more diversified health content or health IT company.

 

EconHealth Seminar, March 20

• Posted March 6th 2008
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• by Janice

Our friends at PaidContent.org have extended a special offer to Health Content in Perspective readers and Health Content07 attendees for their upcoming EconHealth seminar in NY.  We’ll be attending and look forward to seeing many of you there.

PaidContent.org invites you to join our team and excellent panelists for a half-day seminar on March 20 from 1pm to 5pm in New York at the TimesCenter.  As a courtesy to the HealthContent audience, we extend a $50 discount on tickets for the event. Register here using the discount code “HC” to receive $50 off the $250 admission price. Since we’re keeping the discussion group more intimate, the seats are limited and will fly fast, so jump in now.

EconHealth’s specific focus will be the evolving business models for consumer health media companies, VC and M&A deals being done in the industry, the players in the industry, both big and small, and innovative services and disruptors in the space.

The format is simple: one keynote Q&A and three panels. We’re excited to announce that the keynote interview is with Steve Case, chairman and CEO of Revolution LLC, a co-founder of America Online.

Panel topics:

– Competition for Attention: Health portals vs Portals with Health vs Oldline Publishers vs Service Providers

– Emerging models: Search engines, merging medical info with personal medical data, ad networks, and social media 

– Deals: Health and wellness media M&A and venture capital investments 

Other confirmed speakers include:

• Steve Case, chairman and CEO of Revolution LLC, a co-founder of America Online
• Esther Dyson, EDventure
• Stephanie Dolgins, VP-Women’s & Lifestyle, AOL
• David Kramer, CEO, Digitas Health
• John Lambros, Managing Director, Savvian
• Morris R. Levitt, Managing Director-Life Science, DeSilva+Phillips
• Marjorie Martin, GM-Health, About.com
• Daniel Palestrant, CEO, Sermo
• Chris Schroeder, CEO and president, The HealthCentral Network
• Dean Stephens, president & COO, Healthline
• Benjamin Wolin, CEO, Waterfront Media/EverydayHealth

 

We look forward to seeing you there!