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Archive for the ‘Consumer Health’ Category

Healthline’s Semantic Ad Network for Health Content

• Posted June 9th 2008
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• by Janice

Healthline, announced today its entry into the vertical ad network business with its healthcare-focused media network called HealthSTAT™ On-Demand.  HealthSTAT is a welcome addition for medical and healthcare publishers that need new options for revenue generation beyond AdSense and the other general search engine ad networks.  HealthSTAT joins other recent entries in the healthcare ad network space, including IAC/The Health Central Network and Glam Media. Healthline’s initial group of publishing partners includes some trusted traditional brand names and some new entrants (AARP, USNews.com, Time Inc.’s new Health.com, PracticeFusion, Elder.com, HealthPricer, and JustAnswer), as well as its own Healthline.com portal and a new consumer health portal to be launched by United Health later this year, MyOptumHealth. 

We’ve noted before that online health sites that rely primarily on pharma advertising revenue are showing slow and disappointing results. It’s time to think beyond the pharma companies as the only source of ad dollars for consumer health sites.  What impresses me about Healthline (an InfoCommerce 2006 winner), is its understanding of sponsorship opportunities. Its recent deal with Aetna and the signing of United Health in this new ad network show that Healthline recognizes insurers are good publishing partners.  It is important to note that these same insurers should be good prospects as advertisers on the HealthSTAT ad network, too. 

There will undoubtedly be more entrants in the healthcare vertical ad network market. Healthline, with its much-touted medical taxonomy, has built a good technical foundation on which to build its ad network.  But it’s Healthline’s demonstrated ability to form partnerships with important stakeholders that puts it ahead of competitors.

 

Google Health’s Unfinished Content Strategy

• Posted June 2nd 2008
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• by Janice

 One thinks of search when one thinks of Google.  Since the early version of Google Health that was just released in Beta is focused not on search or content but on  interoperability and security for its personal health records (PHR) platform, it is difficult to quickly size up the opportunities. There are a few content companies among the early partnerships, including HealthGrades, Praxeon, and ADAM.  HealthGrades and ADAM are integrated into the main Google Health page, and Praxeon is a services partner that offers personalized content based on a user’s profile via its MyDailyApple service. 

The prime benefits for content partners appear to be the association with Google and visibility in the list of member services for Google Health.  As pointed out in our earlier entry, a user has to choose to sign up with your service and take added steps to register.  Unless the user takes these steps, the only benefit a member services partner receives is brand recognition for being listed among the other services that have been approved to be included in Google Health. Granted, being associated with Google is not a minor benefit (see Dr. Bob Wachter’s paeon to Google and Google Health, in which he states that companies like Walgreens “can’t put a monetary value on the “cool” value of teaming up with Google“). 

On the other hand, if users register for your service via Google Health, you receive  leads that can be upsold to your direct services, either advertising, paid subscriptions or some other revenue model.

Note that it takes work to become a Google Health partner.  Mount Tabor Online Services, a specialized IT services firm, has found a niche in helping potential partner companies navigate the technical hurdles and other issues related to becoming an approved member services partner.  In their own words, “Mount Tabor can help with secure hosting, technical support for functions involving data normalization and data exchange, and strategic guidance related to application development, integration, deployment and operation“.

It will also take patience to wait for a return on investment.  The adoption cycle for PHRs is likely to be slow and the value of a PHR is largely dependent on the adoption of electronic medical records by provider organizations.

Given these hurdles for participating and the limited returns, I find it puzzling that Google only allowed a limited number of member services partners to distribute press releases promoting their partnership.  Among them, none were content partners.  At this stage, it appears that Google may not have a content strategy for Google Health because they are so focused on developing their platform for exchanging information.  There are inklings of how users will be guided to more in-depth information (links on right-hand column display related results from Google News, Google Scholar, and Google Groups), but the existing content elements of Google Health look like a placeholder for a more developed content strategy to come.

 

Healthcare 3R’s Bring Pain and Gain

• Posted May 23rd 2008
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• by Janice

 Arguably the most powerful and actionable of all consumer health information, ratings, rankings ad recommendations (the 3R’s), present both opportunities and minefields, as the Massachusetts Group Insurance Commission (GIC) found out this week when a lawsuit was filed against them by the Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS).   

GIC ranks physicians using cost and quality measures, and its rankings are used for  cost containment; patients have to pay higher copayments for doctors who rank in the lower tiers.  MMS, which has more than 20,000 physicians and student members, alleges that GIC’s system, called Clinical Performance Improvement Initiative (CPI), uses “inaccurate, unreliable and invalid tools and data”.  In particular, the complaint cites miscoding of procedures and inaccurate assignment of patients to physicians who were not responsible for their care. 

A different ratings approach is practiced by the department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS). Its CAHPS program  centers its rankings on patient satisfaction measures.   HHS was also in the news this week with a near-full-page ad in local papers in all 50 states promoting the use of the Hospital Compare site (http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov/). As reported by AP, “the ads reflect an emphasis by the Bush administration to increase transparency in the health care system. Officials say greater public disclosure of costs and quality will drive providers to improve on both fronts.”

Currently, hospitals are penalized with a reduction in their reimbursement rates from CMS if they do not participate in the CAHPS program.  It is expected that HHS will continue down the path of pay-for-performance (P4P) as the CAHPS program develops.  

The 3R’s are shaping up to be a lively and controversial business, and Health Content Advisors and our parent company, InfoCommerce Group, will continue to monitor closely those information products that offer ratings, rankings, and recommendations, and you can look for them to continue to play a prominent role in this year’s Health Content08 conference.

 

Google’s Personal Health Record Platform

• Posted May 20th 2008
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• by Janice

 The long-awaited release of Google Health (in Beta of course) makes it clear that there is a race on between Google and Microsoft to gain traction and share in the emerging market for personal health records (PHRs). 

At Health Content Advisors, we have shifted our view of the relevancy of PHRs to publishers of health content.  Previously, we tended to think that electronic health records were an IT utility for record-keeping and that they would take time to be adopted by a significant portion of consumers.  Yes, publishers should be cognizant of the need to integrate their content with electronic medical records and PHRs, but more timely opportunities seemed to exist in the creation of standalone applications for researching healthcare information.   We now view PHRs as a logical structure and filtering tool for health-related research and information seeking.  Even if users don’t register and import or input data into secure (one hopes) online sites, the architecture of a personal health record is a sensible one for designing a healthcare information portal. 

Google Health requires that users set up a profile that includes age, sex, height, conditions, medications, test results and more before allowing access to the specialized online health services included in Google Health (health topics from ADAM are the exception).  I for one will not be entering this information exchange bargain with Google, but I know that I guard my privacy more highly than some others.  Google is offering added privacy protection measures and will not allow advertising on Google Health, but it has said that it will aggregate anonymized content from Google Health to create trend data and other statistics that can be monetized via online ads or other means.

When viewed as a content service, Google Health sets the registration bar extremely high: imagine other content sites asking for such personal information before they allowed users to view content.  Not many users would complete the registration process.  However, when viewed as a utility for storing personal health information-and a utility that is promoted by one’s medical provider/institution–the same content becomes a beneficial value-added service.  But, in either case, Google is dependent on a high level of trust from users.  

Google doesn’t think small.  As Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch says, Google Health is “a platform” and they are striving to be the most popular platform for personal electronic health records.  We applaud Google for establishing a sound foundational architecture for personal health content and for bringing order to the scattered world of online health content. However, we have some issues with the conditions that are set for accessing the content.

(This is the first in a series of posts on GH.  Our next post will focus on content, search and content partners.)

 

Buy versus Build at HealthGrades

• Posted May 20th 2008
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• by Russell

HealthGrades, a publicly-held healthcare information company, initially rose to prominence on its tremendous success with an improbable business model: selling background reports on physicians to the consumer market. What made the model improbable was the relatively sparse content in most of its physician reports (with the exception of occasional sanction data, it was pretty much name, address, board certification and med school bona fides) and the fact it could sell them at all in an online environment drowning in free health-related information. But sell reports it did, in vast quantities. And HealthGrades continued to innovate, now offering a limited number of physician reports for free where a hospital has agreed to cover the cost for its physicians. Another nice upside of this approach: it links its successful consumer offering to its hospital rating and marketing offerings. Smart.

Arguably, the key to HealthGrade’s success is its ability to get products to market fast, and adapt them rapidly to changing market demands. The key to this agility is that HealthGrades elects to buy rather than build its content, content that HealthGrades then integrates and markets. This preference for content licensing is true of its physician profile product, and it’s true of its newest offering, a prescription rating and comparison tool for consumers.

This offering, just launched a few weeks ago, draws on content licensed from IMS Health and Hearst’s FirstDataBank unit. Integrate the content, feed it into its remarkable online marketing machine, and a successful new product is the likely result.

And lest you think HealthGrades views licensing as a one-way street, consider its announcement yesterday that it is licensing its physician and hospital content to Google Health. It’s a wonderful move to build even more traffic to HealthGrades content, which makes HealthGrades more important to hospitals to which it sells both ratings and consulting services. At the same time, the HealthGrades cash register continues to ring with sales of physician profile reports to consumers. It’s a powerful virtuous circle that favors content marketing over content creation. That’s not a formula for everyone, but it certainly seems to be the right formula for HealthGrades.

 

Medical Tourism Site Launches

• Posted May 14th 2008
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• by Marji

CPR Communications, a healthcare marketing and communications company, has launched YourMedicalTravel.com, a web site that provides information about medical tourism to consumers.

Specific information accessible on the site includes travel tips, cost comparisons for various procedures, legal data and insurance facts. Site visitors can also find information about treatments as well as particular regions (from India to Singapore and Thailand).

The new site complements another CPR Communications offering, MedicalTravelToday.com, a site for businesses that participate in the medical tourism industry.

CPR has launched this latest site to capitalize on a trend of individuals traveling abroad to find more affordable medical treatment. However, recent media reports suggest that the market for such content is not as large as previously thought. A recent article in The Wall Street Journal cites a McKinsey & Co. study that revealed that not as many people are interested in traveling abroad for medical treatment as was assumed. Yet, the study does note that the industry is still poised for strong growth.

In addition, the article notes that the Medical Tourism Association doesn’t size the medical tourism market because there is no firm definition of the market.

Still, for CPR Communications, the launch makes sense. It really does fit nicely with the company’s MedicalTravelToday.com offering, and the organization is certainly on its way to creating a solid portfolio for the medical tourism market. Although the McKinsey study found the market to be smaller than originally thought, it is still predicting growth; and CPR Communications is extremely well-positioned to capitalize on that growth.

 

Consumer-Driven Health Care Drives Demand for Ratings

• Posted May 8th 2008
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• by Janice

The proliferation of doctor ratings sites continues unabated and is likely to continue. The two main drivers of growth are both related to the consumer-directed healthcare movement: 1) the demand for information about healthcare providers from consumers/patients and 2) the focus on measuring quality and satisfaction in healthcare. 

The recent traffic records achieved by Castle Connolly, the publishers of the “Top Doctor” guides, during their promotion of “Long Island’s Top Doctors” on Newsday.com demonstrates the strong demand for the data.  Searches for doctors profiles in the database (accessible via Newsday) resulted in over 1.2 million profile views on just one day.   

On the quality and satisfaction front, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), a division of HHS, has led efforts to compile standardized ratings of healthcare providers and practitioners through their Consumers Assessment of Health Providers and Systems (CAHPS) program.  CAHPS originally measured satisfaction with health plans, but has branched out into measuring patient satisfaction with hospitals, and has begun  measuring satisfaction with physicians through the CAHPS Clinician and Group survey.  The availability of the CAHPS Clinician survey benchmark data (beginning Spring 2009) may spur even more entrants into the doctor ratings business, but it should also raise the bar for the quality of the ratings sites that survive in this competitive field.

 

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.

 

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.