The Ultimate for Physicians

For a profession so dependent on up-to-the-minute technology and research, medicine has lagged behind the times when it comes to communications. This $90 billion industry still has nothing like the entertainment industry’s Variety or the business world’s Wall Street Journal.

Atlanta-based Greenberg News Networks hopes to change that with Medcast Networks, a computer-based news-and-information service tailored to doctors. Conceived by Alan Greenberg, a former executive with Whittle Communications and Esquire magazine, Medcast is more than a simple surf-and-search Internet site; it delivers customized information to desktops via channels devoted to everything from the latest medical news and reference works to information on specialties, professional associations and even golfing conditions. It also offers continuing medical education courses and a Johns Hopkins channel devoted to the latest research discoveries and clinical advances out of East Baltimore, as well as physician directories and alumni information. The Hopkins connection dates to early 1998, when Medcast approached Dean/CEO Ed Miller and Bart Chernow, vice dean for research, technology and corporate relations, about a collaboration. “We were taken with the concept right from the beginnining,” Chernow says. “It was exactly the quality project we like to be part of.”

With a staff of 45 reporters, Medcast aims to ease the information overload confronting doctors obliged to sort through an endless stream of medical journals, government reports and newspapers to keep up with the latest developments. It also provides general news, sports coverage and lifestyle articles. Up and running for about six months, Medcast already has approximately 4,000 physicians signed up, with plans to reach 20,000 by the end of this year and 50,000 by the end of 2001.

Its national sales force will be pitching the service directly to doctors, via three-year subscriptions costing between $300 and $400 annually. M.D.s who subscribe are trained to tailor the system to provide customized updates that will be waiting each morning on their computer’s hard drive. They’re also able to go online with Medcast anytime for news updates or to review items like “Disease Updates” and “1 Minute Consults” on specific topics.

Subscriber contracts include either leased Medcast workstations or software for doctors’ own computers. Cardiologists, primary care physicians, and allergy and asthma specialists are the first groups targeted, but in early 1999, Medcast plans to reach out to half a dozen other specialties (endocrinology, psychiatry, oncology, rheumatology, neurology and HIV care). Over the long haul, Medcast will cover not just the gamut of physician specialties, but related health care fields like nursing and veterinary medicine as well.