Not too relevant to Stay but somewhat of interest:
Terrace said that because of the interdependent and complex nature of the health care industry, the most successful online players will be those that blur the line between being content providers, such as Drkoop.com Inc. (KOOP), retailers like Drugstore.com Inc.(DSCM), and B2B firms such as Healtheon/WebMD Corp. (HLTH.O).
(REUTERS) FEATURE: Conn. Web firm targets health-minded U.S. women
By Matthew Lewis
FARMINGTON, Conn., Aug 29 (Reuters) - With more and more women logging onto the Web to find answers to their medical questions, a Connecticut company believes it has invented a novel way to put doctors and patients in touch via the Internet.
Since it launched in March, GoToMyDoc.com has signed up 1,000 doctors (who serve about two million patients) and is on target to expand within a year to 10,000 doctors (representing some 20 million patients), across the United States, its top executive told Reuters in an interview.
"We're very confident it will work," Skip Creasey, president and chief executive of the Farmington, Conn.-based company, said.
The privately held GoToMyDoc, launched with $25 million in venture capital, gives women round-the-clock access to their physicians, while seeking to provide doctors with a marketing tool that also saves time and cuts paperwork.
GoToMyDoc and its sister firm MyKidsDoctor.com are aimed at health-minded women under 65 years old, and specifically at doctors and patients in the fields of "ob/gyn"
(obstetrics/gynecology) and pediatrics. The doctors who participate are regular, practicing physicians at traditional offices, who simply want to have a greater presence -- or in some cases, any presence -- on the Web, and to use the computer to cut administrative costs.
"We're finding that more and more doctors are going online, and a lot of that is being driven by their patients, who are using (the Internet) more and more," Creasey said.
The idea is that many women want to have a credible and personalized information source for all of their ob/gyn and children's health questions -- whether it's scheduling an appointment or gathering details about an upcoming procedure -- while doctors would welcome an interactive presence in cyberspace as opposed to a "static" Web site that simply includes the doctor's biography and directions to the office, Creasey said.
The firm chose the ob/gyn and pediatric specialties because they tend to be defined by unusually long-term relationships between doctors and patients, he said.
"We're kind of a 'B2B2C' (business to business to consumer) type of play," Creasey said of his company's business model.
"We're extending the physician's office into the home, 24 hours a day, seven days a week," Creasey added. "(We're) allowing the physician's office to have greater efficiency while at the same time providing the patient the convenience and simplicity of going online to do routine tasks, and at the same time knowing that the information they get is specific to their needs, and is from a source that they know and can trust -- their own physician."
GoToMyDoc is convinced it is filling a need. According to a survey it commissioned, 77 percent of the 55 million American women who use the Internet say they would welcome a confidential online source of ob/gyn and pediatric information. Of that 77 percent, nearly half of those women would be willing to pay a yearly fee to use such a service.
GoToMyDoc is funded mainly by subscription fees, amounting to $500 annually for a practice of five physicians. Patients can get a basic service for free, or can pay $25 a year for an "expanded" or more personalized level, Creasey said.
"When you figure that each doctor has about 2,000 patients, if we can get a relatively small percentage of those to subscribe, we have a fairly significant opportunity."
The 35-employee company expects to be profitable in 18 to 24 months. It may eventually go public, Creasey said.
Industry analysts say the idea is a good one because the typical doctor's visit lasts only seven minutes, and there is a general hunger for more access to one's physician.
They warn, however, that the online health care field is already crowded, even though it is only about a year old.
In addition, some feel GoToMyDoc's revenue model is flawed because doctors are notoriously stingy, since they are conditioned by pharmaceutical companies to expect many "freebies" and other perks for their practices.
"Depending on doctors for a main revenue source is not a good idea," Rachel Terrace, analyst at Jupiter Communications Inc.<JPTR.O>, said. "Instead, they should focus on pharmaceutical companies and HMOs."
Creasey agrees that doctors are stingy, but argues that GoToMyDoc's revenue model is more complex and that the company will expand into e-commerce, selling discounted medical supplies to doctors over the Web.
The entire U.S. health care industry of "offline" products and services is estimated at $1 trillion annually, Terrace said. Online health care commerce (products, not services) is projected to grow to $11 billion by 2004, from the current $500 million.
Terrace said that because of the interdependent and complex nature of the health care industry, the most successful online players will be those that blur the line between being content providers, such as Drkoop.com Inc.<KOOP.O>, retailers like Drugstore.com Inc.<DSCM.O>, and B2B firms such as Healtheon/WebMD Corp <HLTH.O>.
((--Hartford newsroom, (860) 727-0224))
REUTERS
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