I’ll be at an IFTF meeting today where they too are talking about Health2.0 but in the much wider context of a shift in bio-citizenry. Hey, they’ve got way high fallotin’ since my days there as a grunge health care consultant in the 1990s. Of course if I didn’t plug the Health2.0–User Generated Healthcare conference in this post, you’d be disappointed, right?

But one interesting nugget arrived in my email courtesy of Today in E-Health Business. Comscore thinks that the “newbies” in the consumer health space are growing—look especially at Healthline’s increases.

More consumers are turning to the Internet to learn about various health issues, with some smaller Web sites gaining traction in the booming online health information category, says a new study by comScore, Inc., a company that measures Web usage. During the first quarter of 2007, an average of 55.3 million monthly U.S. visitors accessed online health information resources, according to the study released May 21. This figure represents 31% of the total U.S. Internet audience, an increase of 12% from the same period last year, it adds. WebMD Health led the online health information category with an average of 17.1 million unique visitors per month in the first quarter (up 25% from the year-ago period), followed by NIH.gov with 9.8 million visitors (up 8%), MSN Health with 8.1 million visitors (up 1%), and Yahoo! Health with 6.7 million visitors (up 83%). Several smaller players also have grown significantly in the category, the study finds. For example, Healthline.com attracted an average of 2.7 million visitors in the first quarter, up 269% from the same period last year, while QualityHealth.com jumped 114% to 2.6 million visitors in the quarter, compared with the same period a year ago, according to comScore. Meanwhile, recent market entrant RevolutionHealth.com has seen its traffic more than double from 239,000 visitors in January to 486,000 visitors in March. “While the larger and more established health portals are continuing to grow, the category is being shaken up by a few upstarts,” says Carolina Petrini, vice president of pharmaceutical solutions at comScore.

This is the transcript of the interview with Richard Kuntz, the CEO of Generic Medical Devices—a start up making, well, generic medical devices. The audio is here

Matthew Holt:  This is Matthew Holt with the Health Care Blog, and this morning I’m back with another podcast and I’m talking to Richard Kuntz. Richard is the CEO of GMD, Generic Medical Devices, which is a company which is, as the name suggests, developing generic versions of medical devices. That’s a pretty interesting approach, and I don’t think it’s been done before.There’s actually a pretty big generic drug industry, which has a pretty interesting place in the panoply of pharmaceuticals, but we don’t know much about generic medical devices. And to find out a bit more, I’ve got Richard on board for a podcast this morning. So, Richard, how are you?

Richard Kuntz:  Excellent. Yourself, Matt?

Matthew:  I’m doing okay so far. As I told you just now, we’re testing out this new device. Hopefully it’ll work and we’ll have an error-free podcast! [laughs]So let’s start at the beginning. We know that medical devices come in different flavors, but probably the ones that have caused most controversy in recent years, in the press and elsewhere, have been medical devices, the expensive ones that are used in surgeries and procedures. We’re talking about stents and artificial hips and that kind of stuff, and there’s been a lot of controversy about both how those are solved and also the margins that are made on those devices. And some of these, there have been a lot of controversy around that.But just give us an overall view of this. You decided to go into this business with the goal of looking at medical devices and creating, presumably, an equally high quality but lower cost version. But what kind of medical devices have you looked at, where is the market that you think is the opportunity, and what is your approach to the market?

Richard:  Certainly the pacemakers, ICs, orthopedic hips, stents, are probably the four items that receive most of the press and discussion in general public, but there are literally thousands of other products that go into the hospitals as far as other implants, surgical instrumentation, and supplies.We’re focusing as the first company to begin developing products that are off-patent, that have proven safety and efficacy, that have existing reimbursement to reduce health care costs and help save Medicare. Every time we pick up the newspaper they’re talking about the impending bankruptcy of Medicare, and we intend to remove cost from those devices in the $120 billion device marketplace.There are literally thousands of products that the large companies have enjoyed a long run on, where the patents have expired; yet the prices continue to ratchet up each and every year. So we’re focusing on those products that do have patents that have expired, and truly, the only thing generic about our products is the price.

Continue reading…

Scott is being a Health2.0 hero. He’s all over the wiki for Health2.0, preaching the gospel at TEPR today and has a nice piece about the evolution of the concept on his blog called Health 2.0: From Concept to Reality. And of course he’ll be a big part of the Health2.0–User Generated Healthcare conference.

He’s also put out the first real definition. I think his definition is way ambitious but I like his moxie and I look forward to bickering with him about it all the way to September and beyond!

At a great meeting in Nashville last week Brian Klepper was explaining to us all how medical supplies were 40% of a hospital’s budget and how the margins on those devices were in the stratosphere. You’d assume that someone would do something about that.

And then lo and behold I get contacted by a company that may be that “someone”. There is not a generic medical device market comparable to the generic drug market. But that will all change if Richard Kuntz, CEO of Generic Medical Devices has his way. Listen to this interview to find out more

HIMSS is having a virtual trade show…. it looks quite interesting, go take a look. It takes a minute to register, but looks quite interesting.

The WSJ’s Health Blog actually features something about health (normally it’s just about drugs). It’s about a doctor at Mayo who’s working with Steelcase to create a treadmill that you walk on while standing at a desk. While we’re talking about wellness programs at work this might be one. But of course treadmills are bad for some people with bad knees (such as me)—ellipticals would be much better.

Of course he’s not the first. Here’s the set up that VC Brad Feld has in his office.
Now Feld is nuts (in a good way) in that he runs marathons, is a
fitness freak, and does conference calls from his “treadputer” using
bluetooth et al while running. But if it works for him….

As for me? I do most of my phone calls while walking the dog….

Health tech vendor Quadramed sent me this Top 10 list about Consumers and Health Information Technology

10. Health Information Technology Improves the Quality of Care Received

9. Health Information Technology is Critical in the Event of a Nation-Wide Emergency

8. Health Information Technology Increases Accountability from Providers

7. Health Information Technology Prevents Medical Errors and Saves Consumers’ Lives

6. Health Information Technology Can Empower Consumers to Make Smarter Healthcare Decisions

5. Health Information Technology Saves Consumers Money

4. Health Information Technology Allows Nurses to Spend More Time with Patients

3. Health Information Technology Increases the Health of the Entire American Population

2. Health Information Technology Keeps Hospitals Profitable

1. Health Information Technology Decreases Billing Errors

You may not agree with all of these! Fire at will!

Pogue’s techy columns are usually great. This one is too, but he had missed WhoIsSick  in his quest to Ask the Crowd to Spread the News about health care online. Of course we’re all over the Health2.0 phenom at THCB because, well, we’re hosting a conference on it.

 More details on said conference such as the agenda and location will be out later this week (hopefully tomorrow). I know I’m boasting but the agenda and quality of speakers rocks.