The American Medical Association and six other medical societies said Friday they plan to launch an Internet company early next year.
"We're creating a Web site with folks who have combined centuries of experience in delivering health care to patients," said the company's CEO, Dr. Edward Fotsch.
Medem Inc. -- short for "medical empowerment" -- hopes that by focusing the content of the site on patients, the San Francisco company will be able to compete with players like Healtheon, drkoop.com, and Medscape that already have a Web presence.
Fotsch said the site will have the advantage of pooling resources of several associations that have Web sites and strength in numbers.
Among the groups joining the AMA are the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The site can be accessed either through the main address or through a network of satellite Medem sites run by individual doctors. The physician sites will be linked to the Medem homepage and its database.
The site will have editorial content selected by a separate non-profit editorial arm of Medem and will include health information and features such as a search engine, secure email, and an email alert service.
"It's as though every individual physician can have the best Web site," Fotsch said.
Doctors who want a personal Web site linked to Medem must pay US$70 a month or agree to run sundry corporate advertisements on their sites. Proceeds from the ads go back to Medem.
Fotsch, a former executive at Healtheon, said Medem's services will be marketed to the 450,000 members of the seven medical societies. He said in the past three weeks, 3,000 doctors have signed up for access to Medem's services.
Medem also includes the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists; the American Academy of Ophthalmology; the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology; and the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons.
Each of the medical organizations behind Medem has already invested about $280,000, and Fotsch said Medem will continue to get equal funding from its members. Also, Medem aims to recruit other medical societies and to partner with corporations.
To address concerns that Medem is little more than a ploy for founders of the venture to profit from affiliations with such influential members, Fotsch said members of Medem's board would not have equity in the company, which could one day go public.
Copyright* 1999 Reuters Limited.*
