Web Watch - Company Business and Marketing

Health Management Technology, Feb, 2000

Virtual Pharmacy Sites

A virtual marketplace from PharmasMarket.com, Inc., Amesbury, MA, with a single online catalog and procurement system enables healthcare providers to do business directly with pharmaceutical manufacturers over the Internet. The site offers many ways to buy and sell, including auctions, e-Quotes, inventory replenishment, provider trading, and comparison shopping, www.pharmasmarket.com

A free Internet-based medication management system from eMD.com[TM], a healthcare e-commerce subsidiary of BioShield[TM] Technologies, Inc., Atlanta, GA, enables electronic prescribing, online medical charting and instant drug fulfillment. The point-of-care system is offered to physicians at no charge and is complemented by a consumer-focused chronic health information Website. www.eMd.com or www.bioshield.com

Physicians can prescribe online with a system from Abaton.com, Minneapolis, MN, that allows them to review a patient's history for harmful drug interactions and allergies, and to access formulary guidelines at the time of prescribing. www.express-scripts.com

Be sure to read Pharmacy Technology on page 20 of this issue.

What's in a Name?

What's in a name? Plenty of moola--if you own the right one. Moldova is the selling the rights to the ".md" Web address. The former Soviet republic has exclusive rights to the ".md" suffix for Web addresses, but has elected to sell that designation for $299 per year for each address.

All countries except the U.S. have been assigned a two-letter domain suffix by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, which is loosely affiliated with the United Nations. For example, Internet addresses for the United Kingdom end in ".uk" and those for Australia end in ".au."

Working with Domain Name Trusts, Fort Myers, FL, Moldova is selling its ".md" suffix to the medical community at 60 percent off the usual $755 price. The suffix is available to hospitals, physicians, pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment suppliers, and other members of the healthcare community on an international scale.

Moldova is using the money it earns to upgrade its national Internet system. Check it out at www.moldova.net

Online CMEs

A university for continuing medical education for medical professionals is online at www.healthstream.com for customers of Pointshare Corp., Bellevue, WA. It helps them to save time by fulfilling required CME on their PC with a library of more than 725 hours of online content provided by HealthStream. MedLecture.com online CME offers an on-demand library of Grand Round lectures from top medical schools, allowing physicians to earn credits in just one hour without having to attend distant conferences.

Family Practice

FamilyMed.com, from Medical Learning Co, Inc., Wellesley, MA, is an online resource for family practice medicine. The site offers multimedia tools for sharpening diagnostic skills, and the American Board of Family Practice's reference and resource material.

Jobsites

Looking for a new job but don't want the boss to know? The Website at www.healthcareMatch.com from Caredata.com allows physicians and other medical professionals to search for jobs by specialty and/or location. Features include allowing the jobseeker to block certain hospitals from seeing his or her resume. The site also features an archive of relevant articles and a discussion board. The Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) has redesigned its Website by adding a keyword search and a new browse function among its improvements. The site features findings from AHCPR-supported research, information on funding opportunities and job vacancies, www.ahcpr.gov

Clinical Guidelines

The National Guideline Clearing House[TM], developed by AHCPR in partnership with the American Medical Association and the American Association of Health Plans, is an electronic database that contains hundreds of clinical practice guidelines and related materials published by public and private sector organizations. The NCG[TM] is frequently updated with new guidelines, www.guideline.gov

X-Ray Vision

Designed to provide radiologists, radiology groups and departments with a business tool to manage communications of radiology services via their own Websites, eMed Technologies, Lexington, MA, introduced eMed.net, an Internet Website development and hosting service on a monthly fee subscription basis. In addition to providing secure access to radiology images and results to referring physicians, specialists and other radiologists, the Websites will provide access to other relevant radiology content and practice management and marketing material, www.emed.com

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