Free Site Offering Patient-Physician Dialog Reaches Milestone
2007 NOV 12 -- Physicians and other healthcare providers have been contributing posts to Healthcommunities.com, Inc.'s healthchannels forum since last August. Recently, the one-thousandth physician post was submitted to the forum. The healthchannels forum is hosted and maintained by Healthcommunities.com, Inc. (HC), a privately held company that publishes original, unbiased, and physician-developed and -monitored patient education websites, including urologychannel.com, oncologychannel.com, and womenshealthchannel.com, et. al. "The forum is notable for the variety of specific, active topics, as well as the physician involvement," says Stanley J. Swierzewski III, M.D., CEO and Founder of Healthcommunities. "There are almost 400 active topics covering everything from acne to vertigo. One forum section growing in popularity is 'Undiagnosed Conditions.' Although not every forum post receives a physician response, browsers with similar medical situations benefit from sharing experiences with each other and can use the information to assist their healthcare provider or medical team. Patients who are fully engaged in the healthcare decision-making process can improve the quality of their care." The healthchannels forum was originally designed as a peer-to-peer area for browsers to interact and share symptoms and treatment information. However, Dr. Swierzewski, a board-certified urologist, began contributing to the browser dialog and other physicians and healthcare providers soon followed suit. Physicians in the forum do not provide diagnostic or treatment information, but share experiences about medical conditions from a physician's point of view. Participating physicians are screened and identified as "Healthcommunities.com Approved Physicians." They also help develop and monitor the clinical condition information on the patient education websites. In return for their assistance, they receive recognition on the patient education websites. Keywords: Healthcommunities.com, Inc. This article was prepared by Pharma Business Week editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2007, Pharma Business Week via NewsRx.com.
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