Bergen Teams to Create E-Commerce Supply System for Community Doctors
The country’s $1.4 trillion healthcare industry has been somewhat resistant to encroachments from the ever-expanding Web,the industry remains tied to paper medical records, prescriptions and patient charts.
Some companies are still soldiering on, however. One of those is Medical Information Networks Inc., a 1-1/2-year-old, privately held Newport Beach concern doing business as med-i-nets.com.
Med-i-nets.com provides its client physicians with wireless, Web-based handheld computer technologies.
Among other things, it can transmit prescription information to a fulfillment center and eliminate a patient’s need to physically visit a pharmacy. Proponents of automated prescription services say they can allow medicines to be processed faster, resulting in cost savings. Others note the system eliminates medication errors linked to a pharmacist’s inability to read a doctor’s handwriting on a traditional paper prescription.
Pharmacy, as a matter of fact, was the inspiration to start med-i-nets.com, according to company President Glenn Jones. Jones said the idea came to him while he was answering e-mail on his Palm Pilot as he waited to pick up a prescription asthma inhaler for his young son.
Jones said he observed what his company’s Web site referred to as a “seemingly endless game of telephone tag” between pharmacist and doctor to clarify prescription instructions.
“I was listening and watching the pharmacist, and I thought there had to be an easier way,” Jones recalled.
The company was founded in 1999.
“There’s a huge market trying to get to physicians,” Jones said, noting that healthcare makes up between 14% and 16% of the gross national product. “Who controls that? It’s the physician,he decides what is done.”
St. Mary Medical Center, an affiliate of the University of California, Los Angeles, Texas Cancer Center and the Arizona State Physicians Association, a 2,400-member independent practitioner association with operations in Phoenix and Tucson, are among the hospitals and physician groups that have either used or tested the company’s systems.
Jones, whose previous business experience includes owning a computer systems integration concern, said he’s seeking additional investors. Med-i-nets.com started with 20 backers, 18 of whom are physicians.
Meanwhile, Dr. Steven Baileys, board chairman of SafeGuard Health Enterprises in Aliso Viejo, joined med-i-nets.com’s advisory board. A company press release on Baileys noted that he was instrumental in taking public SafeGuard, a managed care organization with an emphasis on dental products, in 1983.
As for the future, Jones said he wants to expand the handheld computer device technology to other medical office functions, including records and billing.
Jones said that med-i-nets.com isn’t like other online healthcare companies that have been in the news. “We are not Healtheon,” he said. “Healtheon is a different business model.”
Healtheon merged earlier this year with WebMD and is now known by the latter name. Atlanta-based WebMD recently decided to shift its focus from a content-based and advertising-driven business model to one that plans to bring healthcare transactions online. WebMD, according to published reports, wants to bring a range of transactions online and then charge industry players for their execution.
Bergen in E-Commerce Deal
Bergen Brunswig Drug Co., a subsidiary of Orange-based Bergen Brunswig Corp., has formed a partnership with Sentara Healthcare of Norfolk, Va., to create DOCxdirect. DOCxdirect, an e-commerce medical supply and distribution program, is intended to save community physicians 15% to 20% on the cost of medical supplies for their practices.
A news release from Bergen said that DOCxdirect would provide more than 1,000 pharmaceutical and medical-surgical products from nationally recognized manufacturers to physicians who have established a clinical relationship with Sentara. It said that the partnership combines Sentara’s purchasing power with e-procurement applications from Bergen’s Choice IntelliOrder system and fulfillment by Besse Medical Supply, another Bergen subsidiary.
Sentara, a not-for-profit health services organization, serves more than 2 million people in Virginia and North Carolina. It operates six hospitals with a total of 1,832 beds.
Bits and Pieces:
NeoTherapeutics Inc., Irvine, presented data on its Neotrofin compound at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. The presentations focused on the compound’s potential for treating neurodegenerative diseases … Nexell Therapeutics Inc., Irvine, recently gave a presentation on products and business strategy at Techvest LLC’s annual investment conference on tissue repair, replacement and regeneration in New York. Separately, AmCell Corp. of Burlingame, filed for summary judgment in Nexell’s patent infringement, deceptive trade practice and breach of contract lawsuit against it and Miltenyi Biotec GmbH, Germany.
