Dr. Subrahmanyam Karuturi recently summarized a number of social networking sites aimed at the physician community. This list is useful, especially for physicians who are looking for or need resources. And, the sites listed are interesting.

One comment following Dr. Karuturi's blog entry raises the question of what constitutes a social network and what does not. This current debate is a component of the larger discussion related to the definition of Web 2.0. Wikipedia provides a definition as good as any. As an aside, a quiz in a recent eWeek article included the following question: "What did Tim O'Reilly (of Silicon Valley publishing fame) say about companies that advertise themselves as Web 2.0? Answer: That if a company advertises themselves as Web 2.0, then they probably aren't."

From my perspective, forums and message boards continue to be helpful vehicles tools for online discussion and can offer value as components of often more extensive social networking environments. In fact, many of today's more robust "social networking" sites are really direct descendants of the forum genre.

Furthermore, while debates may continue as to whether certain physician-oriented sites, such as Sermo.com or StudentDoctor.net qualify as social networks, I believe it is more important to focus on the fact that more and more tools and "online communities" are being introduced for physicians. This is clearly in response to the increasingly challenging role physicians hold. As in any marketplace, more options and competition mean more value for the customer.

Why software often goes bad (click to enlarge)

By way of introduction, my name is Bob Crimmins, Chief Technology Officer of iMedExchange. I have spent the past 20+ years striving to build truly useful, truly easy-to-use software. For the past six years, my mission has been to build truly useful, truly easy-to-use software for physicians. As my first contribution to the iMedExchange blog, I want to explain a little about the philosophy of iMedExchange and why I am so pleased to be a part of it. In future posts, I look forward to sharing more specific ideas about what we're up to and, importantly, I look forward to hearing you comments.

At the risk of sounding trite and hyperbolic at the same time, I have to say that I am very excited about iMedExchange... and if you are a physician then I think you should be too. Here's why: while I often hear from software vendors that "physicians haven't kept up with technology", iMedExchange believes just the opposite is true -- technology has not kept up with physicians.

By and large, the software industry caters to large, institutional healthcare interests without much consideration of the individual physicians who carry out the business of healthcare every day. In a certain way, you can't blame them... that's where the money is and that's their business. The result is big, complex systems that are expensive, hard to use, hard to support and don't add value to the day-to-day lives of individual physicians. To keep us on track technologically, I propose the following technology mission statement.

iMedExchange Technology Mission Statement 1.0:
1) Ease of use trumps all other design objectives.
2) Always strive to be the most useful place on the web for physicians.
3) If it doesn't add value to physicians then don't do it.
4) Don't assume you know what physicians want -- ask them.
5) The best ideas haven't been discovered yet -- innovate, innovate, innovate.
6) Ease of use trumps all other design objectives.

I welcome your comments about how to improve this Mission Statement.

In April, the Massachusetts legislature approved a very controversial bill requiring all 6.5 million residents of the state to have health insurance or face penalties. Last week the law was enacted, stipulating that residents with annual incomes below the federal poverty level are eligible for no-cost care. Residents with annual incomes up to three times the poverty level can enroll in state subsidized plans, while those with incomes more than three times the poverty level can choose their own coverage from new, lower-cost private plans if they are not offered coverage through their employer. Needless to say, other states are watching closely.

The movement in Massachusetts, Michael Moore's "Sicko", and other highly publicized healthcare stories are setting the stage for a very active debate on US healthcare during the upcoming Presidential election. Heavily affected by the outcomes of this debate, Physicians have a vested interest to remain well-informed and organized with respect to the public dialog.

After working with physicians for years, I am keenly aware of the myriad of challenges you already face...many of which are interconnected. Few professionals deal with the level of complexity involved in delivering both optimal and cost effective medical care in addition to managing a career, practice and caring for family.

Hi everyone. I'm really happy to say that our iMedExchange introduction is up and running now! Anyone who regularly reads Dr. Kevin's blog has probably seen Dr. Patel located on the right side of the page. If you haven't seen it, you should check out his blog. I am impressed with how often he posts and the quality of the posts.

We are working to add more physicians to our iMedExchange Consultant Network (iCN). To date, this team has been extremely helpful with every aspect of product development and marketing. We showed the introduction to our current iCN members last Thursday, and they had lots of great feedback that we used to make changes right up to launch. If you haven't seen it yet, please turn up your speakers and click on the link above - we'd love to get your feedback too. And if you're a physician who is not a part of our iCN, please consider applying.

For those of you who are in iCN, thank you so much for your help. We review all of the feedback you provide, and take your opinions very seriously. I'm looking forward to even more interaction with you and all our new iCN physicians in the coming months as we prepare to launch the most useful online place for physicians anywhere on the planet.

Today our team experienced a growth milestone. Over the week-end we moved out of the offices that facilitated our formative period, and moved into a beautiful downtown Seattle office that will nicely facilitate our growth.

Our office mascot (Ubu), and Director of Security, isnt quite sure he's as excited as we are, but he'll adjust.

Reflecting back, I thought I'd list a few of the 3 best things that we learned, or that happened, in our first office space:

1. Creativity: Our office space was located in a turn-of-the-century warehouse in the South of Downtown (SODO) area of Seattle. The amenities were lean, but it forced us to be creative and open-minded as we made the space our home away from home. The same creativity is clearly going into the development of iMedExchange, as the physician community will soon see. (I don't want to insinuate that we lived in complete austerity...we had a Starbucks Coffee next door and a Krispy Kreme on the other side. This, however, is trumped in the new office by a Starbucks in the lobby, 3 additional cafes within a block and a state-of-the-art espresso machine in our expansive kitchen. Does it seem like caffeine is important to us?)

2. Resourcefulness: We have run a lean and mean operation from Day 1. I believe our "hungry" attitude would have been spoiled had we immediately pursued institutional capital, plush benefits etc. With iMedExchange, each and every member of the team is passionate about creating the greatest physician experience to date. So, we gave up our plush benefits, high paying jobs etc and are focused on building a world-class company. We also made a deliberate decision to fund this company from within the physician community and management team. Everyone wants a "piece" of physicians. We, on the other hand, want to give back to the physician community, and there isn't a better way to do that than letting physicians participate in the success of iMedExchange.

3. Team: We have a team comprised of amazing healthcare, software, web 2.0 and marketing experts. The heart and soul of iMedExchange is the collection of folks that have put their blood, sweat and tears into the company...and we are in Chapter 1 of a 30 Chapter book. Over the past year we have bonded, learned about one another's strengths and weaknesses and a lot more as we shared an often cramped space. In the end, our office will hold some great memories of the "early" days.

iMedExchange just moved across the street from the historic Medical Dental Building in downtown Seattle. The structure was built over eight decades ago by a group of entrepreneurial Physicians and Dentists. To introduce ourselves to our new neighbors, the iMedExchange team hosted breakfast and lunch for the physicians.

The Winter Garden Café housed in the building was the scene for the meet and greet events. A special thanks to the Winter Garden Cafe owners who served up healthy and very tasty food and drinks. If you haven't visited their café, it's a very cool setting with a fireplace and seating that overlooks the climbing wall of the brand new Executive Allstar Fitness Gym.

I'm happy to report that the Physicians of the Medical Dental Building were excited about the resource iMedExchange is offering to Physicians nationwide. To quote one new physician adviser from the building, "I often feel on an island as a sole practitioner. Joining the iMedExchange Consultant Network (iCN) will give me the opportunity to contribute to a new community that will connect me with physicians facing the same daily challenges."

To make iMedExchange the most useful online place for Physicians, we will have plenty of focus groups and events for our iCN participants. Physicians in the Medical / Dental Building are great candidates to join our team because of their close proximity. So, today I challenge those of you who weren't able to meet us last week to visit www.whoisdrstanley.com to learn more about us. We'd love to have you join the team and help prepare for the movement we are about to launch.

We promise not to be rowdy neighbors, but we will definitely have some fun...so come join in!