Tag: Startups

HEALTH2.0: Vertical Search–The only way is up?

Oct 19, 2007• 7

Forrester data in iHealthbeat:

Seventy percent of online consumers surveyed said they have used a Web-based search engine to find health-related information, but just 7% of online consumers surveyed said they have used a health-specific search engine, according to a survey by Forrester Research

That means that the vertical search guys have had 10% of the market in users although surely much less than 10% of the market in traffic. You can see why with the huge CPM rates for health care advertising this is indeed an interesting market for vertical search crowd like Healia, Healthline, Microsoft/Medstory, Kosmix, Praxeon et al. (Yes, I’m using those 5 as examples as they were on the panel at Health2.0 and I am just reviewing the DVD). But there are others too, like Medgle.

So will they gain any traction from this? Or will the big three (or really the big one) simply take their share back with their new tech releases…

TECH/HEALTH2.0: Marissa Mayer speaks Google Health

Oct 18, 2007• 11

At Web2.0 Summit yesterday (no, Matthew isn’t important enough to be invited to apply for a ticket, but I met a VC for lunch there so I knew it was happening!) Google’s new (and presumably temporary) head of health care Marissa Mayer gave some more details about what’s coming.

First, it’s supposed to be arriving in early 2008.

Second it’s going to have in it the already leaked PHR components, and it will include a rumored (but I don’t think confirmed to this point), physician directory. More interestingly apparently While some parts of the system will be free, she says, the health care services and applications could be subscription-based.

Google hasn’t really done subscription based services to this point, and consumers haven’t exactly flocked to them in heath care as yet. So what they’re thinking about there I’m curious to know.

I’m also wondering what’s happening in the 90 minute all hands meetings Marissa has every day with the Google health team!

But of course so long as Google owns search and search owns the Internet, what they decide to do in health care is about as important as anything—hence our continued fascination.

CODA: By the way, Richard Martin, the scribe at Information Week is probably causing the Redmond PR folks to be pulling their hair out. He says, Microsoft has not publicly disclosed its plans for a health-related product, but is said to be working on an offering that combines software with an online component. Given the attention lavished on a lowly blogger to make sure I knew all about the health piece of Live Search and Healthvault launch earlier this month, I’m sure someone at Information Week should have caught wind of Microsoft’s activity!

CONSUMERS/TECH: Molly and Don write a Gray Paper

Oct 10, 2007• 2

So this morning and yesterday afternoon at the Ix Conference I’ve heard some really interesting technology presentations from Silverlink (disclosure Ix and THCB sponsors!) & Eliza, who are both in the voice automated outbound call space. Popped in on Resolution Health, which looks like it’s emerging as a big time competitor to Active Health Management, and saw an interesting lite-weight messaging system for docs to communicate with patients (and vice versa) called CareNav. Then quick look at how Healthways working with Pro-Change Behavioral Systems is really tailoring (that’s the big Ix word this year!) HRAs—although not all Americans have taken one or even know about HRAs!

CONSUMERS/TECH: David Sobel stars on Tuesday morning at the Ix Conference

Oct 9, 2007

Yesterday (Monday) there was a great session about advertising in health care—but actually impossible to blog about as it was mostly funny videos! Great stuff from Hollywood writer Marty Montgomery who works with Vic Stretcher, HealthMedia Inc, & also from Michelle Sobel, Emmi. Go look at their sites, but briefly, people are prepared to learn about stuff that they are interested in and entertained by!

Ix this morning started with Earl Steinberg from Resolution Health and Jim Prochaska from Pro-Change Behavioral Systems. Lots of data but shorter version is, targeting and tailoring data to those targeted patients works pretty well.

Next, an award for Susan Edgman-Levitan pioneer in patient information and advocacy who actually founded Picker Institute—the originally patient survey organization. Apparently finding out what patients actually thought and wanted was a new idea before Susan showed up!

HEALTH2.0/TECH: Athena Health: The History of the First Health 2.0 IPO By Scott Shreeve

Oct 9, 2007• 3

Scott Shreeve writes frequently about Health 2.0, open source and healthcare, topics that as the co-founder of Medsphere, one of the most-closely followed companies in the industry, he is extremely well qualified to write about. If you enjoy this piece, you will probably also enjoy his recent essay "Health 2.0 Business Model: "Payment Dependent on Results." For more on AthenaHealth have a listen to our podcast interview with always-entertaining CEO Jonathan Bush, one of the real stars of this industry.

Initial Public Offering (ĭ-nĭsh’əl pŭb’lĭk ô’fər-ĭng) n.

1. The first sale of stock by a private company to the public.

2. Stock issued typically to raise capital and gain access to public markets.

3. Sale of stock typically handled by underwriters who determine type, quantity, and price of stock sold.

I have previously written on several occasions about one of my all-time favorite companies – Athena Health.
It is appropriate to once again put finger to key to congratulate
Jonathon Bush, Todd Park, Nancy Brown, Ed Park, Jon Hallock, and the
rest of the Athenista’s for their recent IPO (September 20, 2007). It was the largest IPO of 2007 and bodes well for the ongoing wave of investment in healthcare information technology.

I
find the history, growth, and now the prosperity of Athena to be
fascinating. Athena was founded by my fellow IT co-conspirators,
Jonathon Bush and Todd Park, Athena has steadily advanced over the last
decade birthing the "software as a service"
(SaaS) model within healthcare industry. I say "birthing" because I
have watched the labor pains of Athena fairly closely over the last 5
years since first meeting Todd Park in Waterbury, CT on my first ever
presentation with Medsphere. We discussed then, and watched again and again, as Athena began to take a bigger and bigger swipe at the "healthcare hairball".

TECH/CONSUMERS: Ix Therapy time again!!

Oct 8, 2007

Today Indu and I are at the Ix Therapy Conference in Park City, UT. I’m here as a guest of Josh Seidman, Dorothy Jeffress and the crew at the Center for Information Therapy

David Kibbe is up first. His talk is called "Google. Then Gargle." He’s talking about 4 disruptions:

1. EMR, and spread of electronic health records

2. MinuteClinic, and retail medicine from NPs
3. Medical Tourism, drugs and surgery abroad
4. Health2.0

He’s very interested in Microsoft’s HealthVault (although like me he notes that creating a "strong password" for HealthVault is pretty annoying–I also think HealthVault needs a tutorial PDQ too). But nonetheless the option of moving data around easily between multiple entities and providers is pretty disruptive.

TECH: Glen Tullman, Allscripts CEO on HealthVault

Oct 5, 2007• 2

Microsoft’s HealthVault brings lots of partners to the table. And so far it’s announced one major EMR vendor as a partner. That partner is Allscripts and this morning I got to talk with CEO Glen Tullman. Glen explained his take on Microsoft’s business model, why Allscripts is interested in getting involved and also gives a brief update on NEPSI–Allscripts’ online eRx initiative. Here’s the interview.

TECH: Microsoft Healthvault

Oct 4, 2007• 15

Microsoft released its new Health Vault system this morning. You can read lots about it all over the Internet (NY Times article here).

Briefly the Health Vault allows you to save searches and information you’ve collected on the Internet, also data from devices like blood glucose meters and peak flow meters, and finally the ability to store data from various places (e.g. PHR companies, EMRs etc). I’ll be checking in with some of those partners later in the week.

Microsoft swore blind to me that this has been vetted by the privacy crowd (including the more, ahem, extreme among them) and that all this data will be totally portable to other storage applications.

The money will come from people using search, not from (as Peter Neupert said at Health2.0) putting a toll between patient and doctor.

So with Intuit already making noises, Dossia possibly back on track, Microsoft launching, and Google still working on something similar, the games really are beginning. I’ll be back to comment later.

TECH: Search, Microsoft gets serious

Sep 27, 2007

Having said that search is the most important part of Health2.0, I thought I’d better find out something about it. As it happens Microsoft, the #3 search company by user volume, is announcing a major revision to its Live Search tool today (Thursday) and I sat in on the press briefing Weds morning. It’s clear that despite their unaccustomed non-market leading position, Microsoft is very, very serious about search, and that translates into lots of change to their engine.

Essentially they’ve added considerable indexing to extend the reach of searches, and they’ve added considerable changes in presentation. For example misspellings are automatically corrected, with the “correct” results displayed, (unlike the “did you mean” result from Google), several alternative searches are introduced—for instance a search of “San Jose” will give on a right hand bar the choice of “San Jose, CA, USA” or “San Jose, Costa Rica”. In addition they’re using neural net ranking to increase the understanding of what queries mean so “the office” gets you to the TV show not to the MS Office home page.

Verticals—Maps. shopping, entertainment, and health are the 4 biggest vertical responsible for 40% of all searches.

TECH: RWJ sponsors gamers health contest

Sep 24, 2007• 1

RWJ’s Susan Promislo writes to tell you all:

RWJ has a new open source competition going on that closes in 6 days that I thought also might hold interest for your readers. The current competition, "Why Games Matter: A Prescription for Improving Health and Health Care," seeks innovative new ways that video/computer games and related technologies can transform health and health care. The opportunities for games and health to intersect are expanding rapidly–for example, Texas A&M University is developing the Pulse!! Project, a multimillion-dollar interactive virtual environment simulating operational healthcare facilities, procedures and systems. Pioneer also has funded a team at the Univ. of Washington to explore how adolescents with diabetes may one day be able to transmit health data and communicate wirelessly with their providers via game consoles and cell phones.

At the Why Games Matter competition Web site, people can enter ideas for game-based applications to health and health care and/or comment on any of the entries that have been posted to date.

All competition finalists will win the opportunity to go to Baltimore in May 2008 to present their work at the Changemakers Change Summit held in conjunction with the RWJF-sponsored Games for Health Conference. Competition winners will receive a cash prize. The deadline to enter is Sept. 26 – we welcome participation among readers of THCB and very much appreciate any help in spreading the word about this competition.