On behalf of the iMedExchange (iMX) team, welcome to the brand new iMedExchange Blog! The iMX Blog will serve as an important communication tool as we collectively build iMedExchange. Well, you've found the blog and we are honored that you've taken a few minutes to stay.

A little about what to expect from the blog: Various members of the iMedExchange team will be posting on a regular basis, most often blogging about areas related to their role in the company and their interests...professional and sometimes personal. We'll also periodically post material that we think is entertaining or provides a little insight into the world and team behind the scenes of this exciting venture. Our goal, however, is not to blog for the sake of blogging...as with everything we do, we want to deliver value to our physician customers and we'll be relying on you to tell us how we can make this tool more useful.

We also encourage you to communicate with us, and one another, through the blog. Tell us about yourself. What are the challenges you face as a physician? Tell us about your experience with the web, technology, blogs etc. As we release iMedExchange (Beta release scheduled for Fall 2007) we'll be eager for product feedback and ideas on how we can better serve you. Good, bad or otherwise, we want your feedback and we hope you'll feel comfortable giving the blog a try. Our aim is to make this informative and useful, and hopefully we can have some fun in the process.

Again, Welcome!!!

First, let me introduce myself. I am Rebecca Winter, the Director of Business Development here at iMedExchange. Out of the gate I am working to accomplish two things: recruit hundreds of top physicians from around the country into our iMedExchange Consultant Network (iCN), and introduce as many physicians as possible to the investment opportunity in the company. I am so excited about this company that I left a great career in the pharmaceutical industry and actually invested my own money the day I joined iMedExchange...so if I come across a little excited it's because I am.

I'm not catholic and don't intend to blog about religion, however St. Anthony, the patron saint of things lost or stolen, brought some light to the first phase of our nationwide tour just a week and a half ago.

St. Anthony's Hospital, and the area around it in South St. Louis, Missouri, is where I cut my teeth in Healthcare. Eight years ago, I was introduced to about 120 physicians as a pharmaceutical rep. With a new job, three months of pharmacology under my belt and a big grin, the community embraced me... not only as a young professional, but a friend. It probably helped that I humbled myself by wearing fungus feet to peddle my drug and elicit a smile from the time-pressed physicians and their staff.

Five years have passed since my days in St. Louis, but we started our nationwide campaign in my old backyard. Since my departure, buildings tripled in size and all kind of changes were in store for me. I've attached some pictures of the area. It was great to return home and I am so excited that many of my old friends are joining the iMedExchange movement as advisors and investors.

So, St. Anthony, thanks for returning me home.

By way of introduction, I am Emma Squillace, the Director of Training and Support at iMedExchange. In my work, I spend lots of time talking with physicians about blogs, forums and web based tools they use in their daily routine, and understanding how technology is helping physicians. I am especially interested in what we can do to make things better. I am going to blog periodically about interesting tricks and tips I pick up on blogs and forums. My first post will feature one I found recently...

There's a time-management trick called the 10 minute rule that I really like. Basically it says that if there's something you're putting off, just commit to doing it for 10 minutes. After that time is up you can stop. Most of the time, at 10 minutes into a task it doesn't seem nearly as bad as it did before you started. I've been trying to incorporate the 10 minute rule into my life lately, and I've had pretty good results. Here are a few of my latest successes (plus a failure):

Successes:
 Cleaning out/organizing my email at work.
 Switching out my winter clothes to summer clothes (still have some organizing to do, but at least the mountain-sized pile is more like a hill).
 Reading the new time-management book that Tobin lent me (I've had it for a long time, and yes... I do see the irony in 'not having enough time' to learn how to be more efficient).

Failure:
Instead of listing a few failures, I'm going to go into a little detail on my nutritionally-motivated, badly-executed produce failure. So...this weekend I bought a lot of fruits and vegetables at the farmers market. Usually what happens is I buy them on Sunday with the intention to eat them all week, but if I don't wash/prep them before the work week starts, all of a sudden it's Friday and they're not quite as appealing. So I decided to try the 10 minute rule. 10 minutes into the washing/prepping process I had half a mangled watermelon, a gallon-sized bag full of cabbage shreds, and some clean cherries. But I also had 2 bags of untouched produce, a bunch of asparagus wilting in the colander, 3 hungry dogs, a 'hill' of clothes to put away, and I was getting hungry. Another hour and a half later everything was done, and I have some really good Asian-style coleslaw with me for lunch today, but I was also kind of resenting the 10 minute rule. I think where I went wrong was trying to do too much. There should be a '1 vegetable at a time' rule, where you're not allowed to start on a new vegetable until the previous one is nicely bagged and in the refrigerator. I guess if you learn from your failure, and it saves you even more time in the future, then it was a mistake worth making.

In any case, when used well, the 10 minute rule comes highly recommended by me. Has anyone used this, or have a time-management trick that they love?

After earning my stripes in the St. Louis healthcare market, my antics as a rep earned me a promotion to Kansas City. I worked in Institutions with the State and Federal government coverage of psychiatric medications. Yes, I said Psychiatry.

Rarely am I intimidated, but working with psychiatrists, psychiatry residents and institutional C-levels who psychoanalyze people for a living, made me question my move across Missouri - but not for long.

This week I returned back to Kansas City to visit friends and former clients at KU Med, the VA's of VISIN 15 and Truman/Western Missouri Mental Health. For three years, I worked with the Psychiatrists, Case Workers and Nurses who bring hope to mentally ill patients and their families. They graciously de-sensitized me to the many common misrepresentations of the mentally ill and even motivated me to volunteer time towards the plight of the mentally ill. It was good to be back, getting ideas on how we at iMedExchange can bring value to this specialty and inviting physicians in this great community to join iCN and our growing team of physician investors.

The final move of my career in pharmaceuticals was to the Pacific Northwest in 2004 to manage a team of Pharmaceutical Representatives in Washington and Alaska...Yes Alaska as in the northernmost state in the union.

I relocated to the Wild West to identify solutions to mend the rocky relationship between the Pharmaceutical Industry and the Physicians/Healthcare System in the Pacific Northwest. Alaska, much to my surprise, had a Healthcare Delivery process that was 180 degrees different from the constraints of the heavily managed environment in the "Lower 48" (Alaskan lingo for the 48 states to the south). For example, physicians average more time with each patient visit and less hassle over reimbursement. This also poses an interesting perspective on what Alaskan physicians told us would be helpful as iMedExchange progresses - different priorities than their colleagues in the Lower 48. After the CEO of the company and I met with physicians in Anchorage, we reflected that we've got a lot of work to do in order to effectively serve this audience. Nevertheless, we are confident that iMedExchange will create lots of value for the docs in the Great White North.

As a product company, we need to take into account the things that are important to our Alaskan physicians. It is evident how much they focus on balancing their work and personal lives by embracing the outdoor opportunities around them. For example, it's not uncommon to stop by a practice and see a sign that the physician is off fishing for a couple days. For me, the Alaskan lifestyle reminds me to take a breath from time to time and enjoy the environment around me and what it has to offer.

Every region in the country has different focuses when it comes to the delivery of healthcare. Today I pose a question to the physicians of Alaska. What would you like to share with other practitioners' across the US about why you've chosen to practice in the 50th state?

A 2006 article in the AMNews discussed the decline in physician incomes over the past decade. A report released in Summer '05 analyzes the income drop. Specifically, the average net income for primary care physicians, after adjusting for inflation, declined 10% from 1995 to 2003 to $121,262, according to a national study by the Center for Studying Health System Change. The average adjusted net income for medical specialists slipped 2% to $175,011 during the same period.

Income levels might still seem like a lot of money to most of us, but it's troubling when you account for factors like the years of investment in education and training, the long hours and risk of malpractice. Indeed, the healthcare profession is under assault and physicians increasingly need to become more adept at the business side of their profession.

There are signs that tomorrow's physicians are developing business and technical acumen that will aid in combating the challenges. Valuable forums like StudentDoctor.net allow the next generation of physicians to collaborate with one another and with practicing physicians. They provide a great resource for getting educated before making important career or purchasing decisions. Online communities can help identify the ins and outs of various residency programs or the relative merits of different electronic medical records systems.

iMedExchange is all about "Physician Care." Our aim is to create a tool and community, with your help, that will thwart the financial challenges physicians are facing.

As a physician, are you feeling the financial pinch? If so, in what ways? If you are a newer physician, does this trend concern you? Please feel free to share your comments.

Around our office you will regularly hear that iMedExchange is being built by, for and of physicians. This started to take on more significance a few months back with a single call group, whose practices are to the South of Seattle. The lead member of the group, and a personal friend, joined me and a few other members of the leadership team to talk in depth about iMedExchange. At that meeting, we first shared the concept of iMedExchange, the iCN and our Physician Investment opportunity. Thanks to this physician and his colleagues in the South Sound, we are well on our way to a robust advisory and financial team of terrific physicians from all across the country.

So, I send a salute to the South Sound crew, who were the first group of physicians to believe in our vision, consistently give us feedback and get involved financially. It's not easy to be the first to the dance, but as with any great movement....it starts with a few passionate and insightful individuals getting involved and creating a snowball effect.

I'd like to introduce you to Dr. Patel...the newest member of the iMedExchange team.

For the last few weeks I've been working on an animated presentation that introduces our first two spokespeople and gives a quick overview of what iMedExchange is all about. Our spokespeople are fictional physicians, Dr. Stanley and Dr. Patel, two fun physician characters developed by a world-class illustrator from New York. The animation script has been written and recorded in studio, and the development team is currently working on the actual animation with the Macromedia Flash tool. It's been a very exciting process, and has been more involved than I thought!

The presentation should be ready in 2 weeks, but I thought it would be fun to give you a sneak peek of Dr. Patel. Just yesterday we approved the final Dr. Patel sketch, which means today the illustrator is filling in her colors.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what you think of the presentation, and I'll probably do a few more updates as things move forward. Finally, I cant share a lot, but I can tell you that in addition to seeing more of Dr. Patel and Dr. Stanley...there will be some fun opportunities involving future characters....stay tuned.