healthcare

For people in Hawaii, going to see the doctor just got as easy as booting up their PC.

The state is the first to offer online physician visits statewide, under a program that kicks off Thursday. Residents can chat with a doctor over a standard Web browser (IE 7 or Firefox 2) or carry out their visit over the telephone. Those with a Webcam can also use that to share video with the doctor. The service will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week (with a few monthly maintenance outages during low-volume times).

Members of Hawaii's … Read more

In stark contrast to the many businesses beating a path to Washington to beg for money, Microsoft is urging caution as the government looks to spend billions on digitizing health care.

Peter Neupert, the former Drugstore.com CEO, who now heads Microsoft's health care unit, said investment is a "necessary, but not sufficient" condition for improvement and said that spending money on computer technology may not even be the right first step.

"I'm trying to transform the discussion just a little bit," he said in an interview on Wednesday. "Don't focus on … Read more

Stuart Cohen made news by declaring that the open-source business model is broken (when, in fact, it's not: just one particular, outdated and out-moded model is).

Now Alan Frazier, a prominent venture capitalist, is declaring that the venture capital model is broken.

Meanwhile, pundits are also declaring that the auto industry is broken (It is.), the finance industry is broken, the housing market is broken, health care is broken, and so on.

Have you caught the chorus yet? "Everything is broken" is how it goes.

Easy words when the world appears to be falling apart. But we … Read more

One week after a breached corporate health care company refused to pay extortionists, the criminals now are seeking money from the corporate clients whose employee data might have been exposed.

St. Louis-based Express Scripts said on Tuesday that a limited number of its clients--which include government agencies, unions, and employers--have received letters threatening to expose the personal information of its members. The company said the letters sent to its clients were similar to the original extortion threat it received in October.

The company also said it was establishing a reward totaling $1 million to anyone providing information that results in … Read more

The customer database of Express Scripts, a company used by employer health care services to provide prescription medicine by mail, has been breached. In a twist, the company said it learned of the breach in "a letter from an unknown person or persons trying to extort money from the company."

The company posted details on its Web site Thursday. The letter, received in October, threatened to reveal millions of customer records--including Social Security numbers, addresses, dates of birth, and in some cases, prescription information--on the Internet if the extortion demands were not paid. The company did not disclose … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Three of medicine and technology's minds gathered together Thursday at O'Reilly's Web 2.0 Summit to discuss the state of the U.S. health care system, and where it's going in the next few years. The outlook: good--just give us a swab of your cheek and $400 for the test.

Carol McCall, the vice president of research and development for Humana Inc., believes there's going to be an "explosion" of at-home testing services. Services like 23andMe (which uses a swab of your cheek) are some of the first on that front, leapfrogging … Read more

Health care product giant Johnson & Johnson announced that it has completed its acquisition of HealthMedia, a company that specializes in online health counseling and Web interventions.

HealthMedia is a unique property on the Web. It combines its technology and behavioral science to emulate a health coach in a browser. The site's suite of services provides automated coaching for topics on wellness, disease management, behavioral health, and medication adherence that the company claims will help reduce health bills. Because of that, Johnson & Johnson believes the addition of HealthMedia to its properties will improve the company's standing in … Read more

HealthCare.com, an online directory of health care providers that competes in the so-called health 2.0 space with companies such as OrganizedWisdom, announced on Thursday that it has acquired BrokersWeb, a targeted, performance-based online-advertising firm that caters to health insurance brokers, for an undisclosed sum. With the acquisition, it gains control of BrokersWeb's consumer health insurance search engine, Health Insurance Finders.

"The acquisition of BrokersWeb strengthens our presence and fits within HealthCare.com's mission to help consumers make better health care decisions," said Matias de Tezanos, founder and chief executive of HealthCare.com. "From … Read more

Genetic analysis start-up 23andMe, known for its star-studded "spit parties" and a controversial investment from Google, announced Thursday the debut of a new initiative to bring together women who have been affected by breast cancer or who may be genetically at risk.

October is the 23rd annual National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Using its Web-based social network, 23andMe hopes to "reach out to, and build a community around, women who have encountered breast cancer, thereby increasing the scientific understanding of the inherited aspects of a disease that affects 200,000 newly diagnosed individuals per year." Women … Read more