Last night, iMedExchange hosted the inaugural Seattle HealthTech Meetup. The event was sponsored by Faultline Ventures, with Rob Coppedge leading the discussion. It was a great event with 17 people from 14 different regional health care companies including Array Health Solutions, Clarity Health Services, Health Phone Solutions, Health Unity, Limeade, QTrait, Raffetto Herman and SnapForSeniors.

Rob Coppedge, Director for Corporate Development at iMedExchange and founder of Faultline Ventures, spoke on how Seattle can become a more vibrant and effective hub of healthcare technology. Highlighting the advantage of Seattle's entrepreneurial spirit and focus on innovation, he pointed out that Seattle is not as risk averse as some other cities currently thought of as healthcare hubs such as Nashville and Louisville. Rob did a great job getting the conversation started by speaking of his experience as a seasoned health care technology analyst and investor.

Following Rob's introduction, the group discussed Seattle's distinct attitude of "doing well by doing good' and left the evening event feeling energized and looking forward to more gatherings where active collaboration and brainstorming is the focus.

Thanks to Rob for doing such a great job, and thanks to all who attended!

Like all of my fellow physicians, I work hard to earn my income. I studied for years, and often work long and erratic hours and am now battling the economic squeeze felt by many of us.

So, like everyone else, I want to do the best I can managing the money I earn. While successful money management is always a challenge, particularly when you are as busy as most of us are, it is incredibly difficult given the crisis in the financial markets.

Thankfully, iMedExchange gets it! They get us! They listen to the needs of physicians and they are working hard to deliver value and solutions as quickly as possible, particularly in light of our need to protect our earnings from uncertain financial markets.

There is wisdom in crowds. As our community on iMedExchange grows...and by the way, we are the fastest growing community for physicians by far...the ability to connect around personal, clinical and certainly financial topics is incredibly valuable. But they are offering far more...

The Financial Resource Center, the Financial Crisis Speaker Series and the Vital Signs daily market digest are indications that this community is something special. Not only are we connecting with one another in increasing numbers, but we are getting unparalleled content that is growing by the week. Finally, we now have access to world-class financial experts.

As one of the Medical Directors for iMedExchange, I welcome your ideas, dialogue and questions.

Today, iMedExchange is launching a groundbreaking set of financial resources to benefit US physicians. iMedExchange's Financial Resource Center has been developed in response to our members' specific requests to share proprietary research, provide access to respected financial experts and to support the collaboration of physicians around financial matters. Money management is always important for physicians, but it's importance has been significantly heightened since world financial matters have been in crisis.

An important part of iMedExchange's physician-focused Financial Resource Center is the launch of the Financial Crisis Speaker Series. The Series kicks off at 7pm EST on Tuesday November 4 with a keynote presentation by Michael Ryan, the head of research for UBS. In addition to UBS, the series will feature nationally renowned financial experts from Abernathy Group, Sinnot Wealth Management, Biotech Monthly, speciality fund managers, research departments of global banks and more.

Each speaker will participate in a live conference call and respond to questions from physicians. The calls will be recorded and posted on the iMedExchange Financial Resource Center for members to review at any time.

In addition to the weekly speaker series, very insightful content, much of it written specifically for iMedExchange members, will be added to the site from the Company's growing list of financial partners. In addition to research from our partners, iMedExchange is also launching a new daily publication, Vital Signs, which will summarize the important financial news story with analysis specially for our physician members.

Vital Signs and the Speaker Series, and the additional resources we will be adding on a weekly basis, will be available only to US physicians who are members of the growing iMedExchange community. iMedExchange is a FREE online place for physicians to connect with one other, great content and now experts. If you are a US physician and not yet a member, please go to www.imedexchange.com to fill out a simple application and join the fastest growing community of physicians in the country.

If you are a financial expert or media and want to talk more about this effort, please feel free to reach me at: info@imedexchange.com.

Having worked with physicians for almost a decade, I know first-hand that they have few trusted resources for making quality investment decisions. Physicians are naturally very bright, but also time-constrained. As a result, they tend to make financial decisions with limited or less-than-adequate information or analysis....often making investments in areas in which they have no experience. I am very excited to announce that iMedExchange will make a difference in this important area. The iMedExchange Financial Resource Center (FRC) is now up and running with its foundational partner...The Abernathy Group.

Nelson's Financial Information has ranked The Abernathy Group the #1 money manager in the nation eleven times. Over the last 17 years, investors with The Abernathy Group have accessed outperformance exceeding many of Wall Street's most legendary value investors. The firm has been featured by CNN, CBS, Forbes, Business Week, Fortune, and on the cover of Money Magazine.

The Abernathy Group has been physician-specific since its inception, and they pioneered the practice on Wall Street of charging a 0% management fee, taking no profit whatsoever unless they produce results by growing a physician's portfolio. It is this deep passion for physician financial success that led the Abernathy team to volunteer to help organize and manage the Financial Resource Center (FRC) to ensure that all the experts, authors and content brought to the site is of the utmost quality and meets a rigid standard of integrity.

Physicians - whether you are looking for ways to understand the impact of the current banking turmoil, or are looking for information on asset protection, estate planning and so on, the Financial Resource Center will be an unparalleled resource, available exclusively for members of iMedExchange. Get educated with great content, collaborate with fellow physicians on their experiencve with various investments and finally, connect with experts. Stay tuned for regular additions to the FRC.

It is somewhat uncanny how many "celebrities" the iMedExchange team runs cross in our many travels around the country meeting with our physician members and advisors. This week we had a special treat. Some context is required to set the stage...the iMedExchange team is by and large an extremely avid fan base for the television show "The Office"...both the original British version and the ongoing US version starring Steve Carell.

With that background, Cliff Chirls and I had the pleasure of meeting a truly engaging person while in New York and, as the title of the blog implies, he is non other than "cool guy" Paul Faust. (pictured above with Cliff and wearing his signature Affliction shirt as worn on The Office.)

Faust is such a larger than life character that the writers of "The Office", after meeting him on the set, created a character after him. When they realized no one can play this character better than the real character himself, they asked him to take up part. (We certainly hope The Office writers really have some more fun with this character.)

So, it was a lot of fun to meet Paul this week, we look forward to seeing his character on many future shows and spending time with him on subsequent visits to the Big Apple.

Today I'd like to introduce one of our newest partners: PracticeMatch, a premier source for physician data and recruitment services.

PracticeMatch PinPoint, a physician-recruiting database, is the main product of PracticeMatch. This innovative web-based delivery system includes detailed profiles, demonstratively high quality, and competitive pricing. This product is the only recruiting database of its type, and it dominates the in-house recruiting market. Healthcare systems and recruiters chose PracticeMatch as their number one resource for physician data in the 2006 Physician Recruiting Resources Survey.

Physician members of iMedExchange can take advantage of our partnership with PracticeMatch by searching for jobs, accessing career resources, and watching videos inside iMedExchange. Welcome to PracticeMatch and their clients!

Our mission at iMedExchange is to provide value to physicians through connections, information and expertise. Part of our efforts will involve partnerships with like-minded organizations.

Today I'd like to introduce one of our newest partners: ReachMD, an innovative communications company, that provides thought-provoking medical news and information to healthcare practitioners.

Established to help increasingly time-constrained medical providers stay abreast of new research, treatment protocols and continuing education requirements, ReachMD delivers innovative and informative radio programming via XM Satellite Radio Channel 157 and online streaming developed by doctors for doctors.

We're excited to start bringing these valuable partners to the physicians of iMedExchange, and welcome ReachMD and its listeners to our site.

It has been a few months since I updated you all on the burgeoning Seattle startup community and iMedExchange's place therein.

The last time I reported on the Seattle Startup Index was back in November, 2007. Since then, we have moved up the rankings from 167th to 129th, while the total number of companies on the list has increased from 210 to 282. That's equivalent to moving up from the 77th percentile to the 46th percentile -- and all of this without yet formally launching or any concerted membership drive. Thanks to our membership for continuing to help us build the best site on the planet for physicians!!!

We also continue to host the Seattle Poker 2.0 events here at our offices and many of the regular attendees are also making their way up the Seattle Startup Index. We have developed some good relationships with other Seattle startups and some real synergies have come from it. At each event, participants are encouraged to share updates on their ventures with the rest of the crew and I look forward to announcing our own big launch at the next event!

A quick progress update on our quest to have physicians from all 50 states participating in iMedExchange before our official launch. We are happy to take New Mexico and Utah off our shrinking list of unrepresented states! Welcome to our new members, we're happy you joined.

As of today we have physicians using iMedExchange from 43 of the states. This is a call out to all of you in the remaining 7 states - Delaware, Idaho, New Mexico, Nebraska, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming - to come join us! I'll keep you updated on our countdown to all 50 states.

iMedExchange is working hard to create the most useful online place for physicians. To that end, we just opened our Palo Alto, California office. This office creates a strategic presence for the company in the heart of Silicon Valley and gives us access to some of the top web development and Internet marketing talent on the planet. Now, we get the best of two top-tier technology markets in Seattle and Silicon Valley.

For the past 6 months the team has worked in an interim facility in the heart of San Francisco, but growth of the team required a larger more accessible space. Congratulations to Chip Vanek, our VP of Engineering and the growing team based in Palo Alto, CA!

iMedExchange continues to climb the Seattle Startup Index... without yet even trying! I'm not sure what this says about the Index but I'll opt for the charitable view: i.e., that we're moving up in advance of our formal attempt to recruit members simply because we've captured the imagination of our market place. In any case, we continue to fire on all cylinders and are gathering lots of momentum. The results from January: we moved up five positions to 138 out of 260 on the overall ranking, 25 out of 39 in the Web Business to Business category (WBB) and 124 out of 206 among all web-based startups. We'll continue to have fun watching our ranking, especially as we begin to actively seek out new members.

As an aside, I noticed that skillbit (the company founded by the Seattle Startup Weekend that I mentioned in my last post) debuted at position 134 out of 260 -- actually ahead of iMedExchange! I know that the skillbit team has some smart folks working to ensure search engine optimization (SEO) so this shouldn't surprise anyone. That said, I consider it a worthy challenge to chase them up the ranks. ;)

We announced a new partnership with MDNG New Media on Friday. Their banner is now on the iMedExchange home page, and our Drs. Stanley and Patel are featured in a rotating banner on their site. Welcome MDNG visitors! Here's the announcement of the partnership. And here is our information as you'll see it on their site:

The development team in San Francisco came up to our Seattle offices for a few days of meetings and fun times. The pictures of the meetings are pretty boring, but we all dressed up one night and went to Teatro Zinzanni - and that picture is exciting enough to share. What a great event! If you're ever in Seattle, I highly recommend it. We even got Tobin to wear a boa - now that's a good CEO. Thanks for the visit guys - hope to see you again in person soon!

iMedExchange continued to move its way up the Seattle Startup Index to close out 2007 at position 143 out of 243, up 10 spots from the previous month. This is especially good news since we have yet to even publically lauch or even do much at all in terms of marketing! Of course, the SSI is hardly a statistically accurate indicator of... well... anything. But it's fun to watch and I thank Marcelo Calbucci at Seattle 2.0 for keeping it going month after month.