Need for information brings lots of cyberspace health sites

Jim Clark has built two fortunes by identifying key technologies early and creating companies around them: three-dimensional computer imaging with Silicon Graphics Inc., and user-friendly tools for the World Wide Web with Netscape Communications.

But with last week's launching of his third company, Healtheon Corp., he leapt into what may already be the most crowded market in cyberspace: on-line health information.

A quick search under health on Yahoo, a leading Web directory, shows 194 sites devoted to alternative medicine, 125 on dentistry, 983 on diseases and conditions, 1,633 on medicine, 346 on mental health, 389 on pharmacology and much, much more.

And Monday, a Minneapolis company, Allina Health System, is joining the crowd, announcing a partnership with IBM and Medicalogic, a medical-software firm based in Beaverton, Ore., in an on-line venture called Allina Health Village. It will offer access not just to details of the Minneapolis-area health care system's plans, but also to research on any health care topic.

The proliferation of health sites in cyberspace reflects a deep hunger for information that will help people make more informed choices about their own care. AIDS patients may have been the first to exploit the Internet this way, trading anecdotal experiences with different drugs and discussing the results of clinical trials over the Usenet, a computer network of bulletin boards and discussion groups.

Now broader consumer groups are assuming greater responsibility for their health care decisions, seeking as much information as possible when choosing a health plan, a doctor or a treatment.

There is obvious logic in the proliferation of health care computer sites -- like law and personal finance, health care is a field in which millions of people have an appetite for sources of highly detailed information narrowly tailored to their individual situations.

In some cases, the Internet's reservoir of health data has given patients the ability to help their doctors.

Recently, for instance, Dr. Melissa Congdon, a pediatrician in Mill Valley, Calif., saw a 6-year-old suffering from diarrhea.

"I said, `It's probably just a virus.' " Dr. Congdon related. The mother disagreed. "She said, `Oh, no. My sister travels to exotic countries and I don't think this is ordinary diarrhea.' " In fact, exotic bacteria were found in a stool culture.

"I looked in my medical textbooks and could find only one sentence about it," Dr. Congdon continued. The mother said, `Let's look at the Internet.' "

Shortly thereafter, the child's mother gave Dr. Congdon a long review article and much more information about traveler's diarrhea.

"It was wonderfully helpful," the pediatrician said.

"I could have gone to a medical library, searched through texts, spent the time driving back and forth, and still not found much."

The Internet has also proved useful to those who find navigating the American health care system as complicated as medical science itself.

"The United States has a wonderful health care system, but we have very little access to information about it, and as consumers we do a terrible job of purchasing health care," said Jamie Taafe, president of MedAccess Corp., which appears on the Web at www.medaccess.com.

"Our goal is to be the largest site on the Internet not only for health and wellness information, but also qualitative information on physicians, nurses, hospitals, HMOs and PPOs," he said, referring to health maintenance organizations and preferred provider organizations.

As with most World Wide Web health sites, MedAccess says it has no intention of charging users for viewing its pages. It plans instead to make money by charging a nominal fee to providers -- $500 for health plans, $49 a year for physicians -- that want to augment the data published about them on the site.

MedAccess also offers corporations its services in benefits- enrollment management, including comparative data on health plans. The service will also sell leads back to the providers at $20 each.

In some ways, the MedAccess business plan is the mirror image of Healtheon's, which is to be primarily a service provider to the health plans. Healtheon's main business is benefits-enrollment management; the providing of care information, e-mail from patient to physician, and other electronic services are seen as ways to add value.

But many of the health sites on the Web are based on a more traditional publishing model: give away the content to attract a desirable demographic group and then sell advertising.

"The most successful sites will be the ones that find ways to connect advertisers with the people who want what they're selling," said Terry Boorsook, proprietor of www.all-abouthealth.com, which went live from Toronto on June 1.

"If someone is looking for information about diabetes, they might also find an ad for glucose monitors," he said.

But attracting advertisers can be difficult. "We tried to get sponsors, contacted all the different companies to try to sell them ads, and it's been a complete and utter failure," said Jean-Marc Perelmuter, president of Artifex Internet Inc., a Montreal-based Internet access provider. It publishes Dear Doc (http://deardoc.hlthnet.com/), featuring a local family doctor.

"We get about 40,000 visitors a month, but we can't keep it up," he said.

At this point in the evolution of the on-line health market, the sheer numbers of sites and the volume of information on each site make it hard for users and advertisers alike to perceive the value there, said Dr. Matthew Nathans, author of The Internet Health Fitness and Medicine Yellow Pages.

"There's an enormous proliferation of these broad-based `everything you ever wanted to know about health' sites," he said.

One way to make money providing health care information on the Web without ads is charging for transactions.

For example, Healthworld On-line (www.healthy.net), which is based in Downey, Calif., has a site with an orientation toward homeopathy, holistic health and other alternative medicine. Through its marketplace page, vendors of alternative treatments and nutritional supplements can sell their wares directly to consumers, with Healthworld getting a percentage.

Copyright 1996
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