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GRL Notes

Healthcare Marketing
on the Internet
  There are five strategies for medical publishers, pharmaceutical advertisers and other healthcare marketers on the Internet:

    COMMUNICATION

  1. For everyone, use the Web for administrative email, research and competitive analysis.

    PUBLICATION

  2. Advertise or rent space on a healthcare site.
  3. For marketers, provide on-line marketing communications via a Web site.
  4. For publishers, create a subscription and/or ad-supported Web publication.

    TRANSACTION

  5. Sell products, develop special interest newsgroups and provide other transaction services to professional and consumer audiences.
Posted by Jack Powers
September 6, 1995
Updated:
September 12, 1995
Client: Healthcare Marketing &
Communications
Council
 

The following links illustrate the range of healthcare connections on the World Wide Web. This list is by no means comprehensive, but they highlight the key issues.

    WORLD WIDE WEB

  1. TimeWarner's Pathfinder
  2. Hot Wired
  3. Ragu
  4. Electronic Newsstand

    ACADEMIC RESOURCES

  5. An excellent starting point is the WWW Virtual Library's huge Biosciences page at Harvard and the comprehensive Pharmacy site managed by David Bourne of the University of Oklahoma College of Pharmacy. The Pharmacy site in Oklahoma links to the University of Sydney Department of Pharmacy in Australia which takes us to De Montfort University in England and Mizumo Pharmacies in Japan.
  6. The University of Manchester in England manages PharmWeb, a pharmacy-related site accessed by over 60 countries and serving more than 5,000 requests per week.
  7. World Wide Drugs is a list of links to medical and pharmaceutical pages with many university sites.
  8. The Tree of Life, a phylogenetic mapping system developed by David R. Maddison and Wayne P. Maddison of the University of Arizona.
  9. The National Library of Medicine supports many Web servers in diverse fields including the fascinating Visible Human Project, a collection of crossection photos, CT and MRI scans for Internet users.
  10. An example of healthcare bulletin boards are the sci.med and the bionet.immunology newsgroups.
  11. Marshall University School of Medicine has out a Living Patient with cases that Web browsers can diagnose and treat.
  12. For futurists, Virtual Reality in Medicine and Surgical Simulation discusses long distance surgery over the Internet.

    PUBLICATIONS

  13. The SCIENCE Magazine Web site includes articles, advertising and special features thta supplement the printed version.
  14. Medscape, an interesting new site from SCP Communications that asks users to register with a New User Form
  15. The Cyberspace Telemedical Office charges a $25 set-up fee and $10 per month to maintain subscribers' personalized patient records that link to personalized disease, drug and health advisories.
  16. Medicine On-Line presents oncological information sponsored by Wellcome Oncology.
  17. Physician's On-Line, an ad-supported systems for physicians and prescribing healthcare professionals, is coming to the Web this year.
  18. The Global Health Network, a non-commercial organization for "tele-preventive" medicine run out of the University of Pittsburgh.
  19. MEDSTUFF!, a non-commercial site developed by physicians with a specia l Recreation Section.

    COMMERCIAL SITES

  20. The Activase Home Page includes prescribing information and press releases sponsored by Genentech.
  21. Pharmaceutical Information Network, a commercial "Main Street" with some interesting recent statistics.
  22. The Eli Lilly Home Page
  23. BioSyn Home Page and the BioSyn Order Form
  24. Pharmmall's short list of companies providing Web services.

If you've got any additions or comments about this initial set of examples, please POST me a note. After the keynote, my notes and the slides from the session will be available here on ELECTRIC PAGES.