One of the coolest things that evolved out of the Web 2.0 movement is the availability of some pretty cool FREE (or near free) web applications/software — everything from traditional office suites (e.g. Zoho, MS Office Live) to accounting software (e.g. Mint ) and even photo & video storage/sharing (e.g. Flickr, Picassa).

And when it comes to acquiring comapnies (together with their web apps) and “liberating” these applications to consumers for free, there is probalby no bigger player than Google. And, if you’re anything like me, you probably take advantage of some of their free services — such as GMail, Google Analytics, Google Trends, etc. — for either personal or professional uses.

So if you manage a website in some form or another, and whether you already use these tools or are just interested in finding out how to tap into some of these wonderful, free web apps that Google provides, you might be interestsed in the upcoming webinar that Google is hosting:

The Google Trifecta: Webmaster Tools, Analytics, Website Optimizer

For the first time ever, the Google Webmaster Tools, Analytics, and Website Optimizer teams will join forces to hold a free online seminar. By using all three of these tools together, you can gain a comprehensive understanding of your pages’ visibility on Google, how your visitors interact with your site, and what content will most effectively get them to take the desired action.
During this online seminar, team members will:

• Provide brief introductions to their products
• Highlight recent product updates and releases
• Discuss the benefits of using all three products together
• Answer common questions submitted by attendees

Upon registration, we also invite you to submit any specific topics you’d like them to cover. We look forward to seeing you there!

Click here to register.

More details (from the Google Blog):

Three of our most useful products for website owners are Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, and Google Website Optimizer. On July 8, we’re joining forces to bring you a free webinar about all of them so you can learn more about how they can boost your website when used together.

Here’s the trifecta:

Google Webmaster Tools is a resource to gauge the visibility of your pages on Google. It shows you which of our search queries drive traffic to your site and lets you see where your site is included in the top search results. You’ll even be able to identify your top content and view the words that other sites use to link to it.

Google Analytics provides further insight on how people land and navigate on your site, regardless of whether they arrive through Google search, pay-per-click ads, or other means. You can see which geographical regions people come from, view your top landing pages, and compare the effectiveness of all your ads, e-mail newsletters, affiliate campaigns, referrals, and keywords on Google and other search engines.

Google Website Optimizer then enables you to act on the information you’ve gathered about your site and make concrete improvements. After identifying your high-traffic but low-converting pages, you can test different combinations of content to determine which one most yields the outcome you’re looking for.

To be clear, we keep a strict wall between search and ads; your site ranking won’t affect your ad placement and vice versa. Still, by using all three tools together, you’ll gain a complete, detailed picture of how your site’s visitors arrive, interact, and respond to changes in content or design. And if you’re already using one tool, you can use your same login for the others.

Our first-ever joint webinar for Webmaster Tools, Analytics, and Website Optimizer will take place:

DATE: Tuesday, July 8
TIME: 9:00 a.m. PT (Pacific Time)
JOIN US: Register to attend

If you can’t make that date, you’ll be able to access an archived version of the presentation via the same registration URL. And lest you forget, you can always visit Google Webmaster Central to see everything we offer to help you build and maintain your best site.

With all the recent focus on Google Health and even more distractions with the iPhone 3G announcement, it was probably easy to miss the June 9th announcement by Microsoft (MS) about its partnership with one of the nations leading managed care organizations, Kaiser Permanente (KP).

Probably in response to Google Health’s strong partnerships at launch (including Cleveland Clinic, Walgreens, CVS, Beth Israel, American Heart Association and many others), MS and KP have now partnered on a pilot program for “health data transfers” between KP’s My Health Manager and MS’s HealthVault PHR platform.

Already, My Health Manager’s more than 2 million users have convenient and easy online access to clinical information and health management tools, including e-mailing your doctor, online prescription refills and appointment scheduling. Connecting My Health Manager to the HealthVault platform will allow users to combine personal health information from Kaiser Permanente and a wide range of health and wellness management applications and devices such as blood pressure monitors…

Initially, the pilot program will only be open (voluntarily) to KP’s 159,000 employees. “If the pilot is successful, the program will be expanded to include Kaiser Permanente’s more than 8 million members“. That’s a pretty hefty number to start with for a pilot (that is, if they get good uptake from their employees), but once it’s open to the network, that will be HUGE!

Fard Johnmar from the HealthCareVox points out an interesting development in this partnership that he feels will give Microsoft “…a leg up in the PHR arena. Linking clinical information to advice from a physician makes the PHR much more valuable to patients“. Here’s the segment from the news release that he is referring to:

A distinction between Kaiser Permanente’s online health tool and others offered by insurers is the range and relevance of the information itself: In addition to containing benefits and eligibility information, My Health Manager also is powered by both clinical data entered by physicians, going much deeper than the standard claims-based PHRs on the market. For example, consumers can not only see a record of a test that they had, but also the result of that test and in some cases, direct feedback from their doctors about the result. Since both the patient and physician use the data in My Health Manager, consumers are actively using their Kaiser Permanente PHR to communicate with their physician and support their health goals.

I agree that this makes a very compelling case for using this PHR platform, especially here in the USA, where healthcare choices are impacted by so many different authorities and organizations (e.g. physicians, insurance, managed care, DTC advertising, etc.).

In fact, The HealthCare Blog had a recent post about a report entitled “Research Shows Healthcare Market Constituents Seek Information as Key to Solving the Affordability Crisis” (PDF file), which basically suggests a need for an “integrated health care management” system to close the communication gap between consumers, employers, payers and providers in order to better manage healthcare costs. Perhaps these new initatives by Microsoft HealthVault and Google Health are helping us do just that and get us one step closer to a better informed society of personal healthcare management.

If you want to hear a brief pre-release interview with Peter Neupert, Corporate VP of Microsoft Health Solutions Group and Anne-Lisa Silvestre, VP of Online Services at KP, you can listen to Matthew Holt’s interview here (MP3 file).

And finally, if you’re wondering why KP went with HealthVault over Google Health, here’s a brief explaination from the NY Times (thanks to THCB’s blog update):

Kaiser chose the Microsoft technology, even though Ms. Silvestre is a member of a group of health professionals advising Google. Ms. Silvestre said Kaiser also looked closely at Google, but was particularly impressed by Microsoft’s technology for protecting the privacy and security of personal data. And she noted that Microsoft and Kaiser are using the same Web-based format, called a Continuity of Care Document, or CCD. Ms.Silvestre said Google is initially focusing its efforts on a different format for Web health records, called Continuity of Care Record, or CCR…But these different Web standards, analysts say, are not a long-term obstacle to consumer health records from rival companies being able to share and view information. Google, for example, is committed to supporting both formats, and so is Microsoft…“Google will certainly be a player in this, and we look forward to working with them,” Ms. Silvestre said. “We’re all for consumer choice.”

Let the PHR wars begin !!!

BTW, as a related point of interest, Microsoft has just (June 23rd) announced that they are supporting the OpenID authentication platform for MS HealthVault — a first for Microsoft. However, as noted by Jason Kincaid on TechCrunch, “…Health Vault will only support authentication from two OpenID providers: Trustbearer and Verisign. Whatever happened to the Open in OpenID?“

OK, this is sad! I’ve been meaning to post this for the last 10+ days now, but somehow got distracted/busy with other stuff…Sorry!

So, for those of you who have not been living under a boulder or stuck behind a corporate firewall that prevents you from viewing anything but your company.com website or Google’s search page, then you will no doubt have heard the big announcement last Monday (June 9th) about the upcoming launch of the NEW iPhone 3G — “Twice as fast. Half the price.” Available to 22 countries around the world on July 11th.

Yup, that’s right folks, it’s real…And all those speculated features like 3G, GPS, longer battery life, and cheaper price…Well, those are all real too!

There’s been LOTS and LOTS of coverage from all over the blogosphere and the web in general, including the usual suspects — CNET, TechCrunch, etc. — but I found the Live Blog on MacRumors to be the best live commentary for the event; mainly because of the great use of a perpetually refreshing page, the frequent and relevant image updates, and almost twitter-conscious concise comments. I actually started off with TechCrunch, but the live blog crashed before the event even really began.

So, without going into too much detail, here’s a brief run down of some of the new key features of the new iPhone 3G…

1. As the name suggests, it uses 3G network support for wireless connectivity
2. GPS capabilities built-in: “…combines GPS, Wi-Fi, and cell tower location technology with the Multi-Touch interface”
3. Enterprise support: ”It supports Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, delivering push email, calendar, and contacts”
4. Comes with iPhone 2.0 Software and all the bells and whistles that entails, including the App Store for 3rd party software
5. Initial pricing is $199 (Yes, that’s ONE HUNDRED & NINETY-NINE DOLLARS) for the 8GB and $299 for the 16GB with a 2 year contract through AT&T

Although ePocrates was not present at the Apple WWDC event (where the iPhone 3G was announced), it was mentioned that ePocrates did a survey of their “key physicians” shortly after the initial iPhone SDK demo and found that “…of those planning on buying a phone in the next 12 mths, fully a third plan to buy an iPhone, making it their number one choice“.

In addition, there were a couple of new and interesting medical-related apps demoed at the event coming from Modality and MIMvista. Both iPhone apps will be available through the iPhone App Store when it launches.

The Modality app, Netter’s Anatomy, is basically a learning tool that replaces the flash-cards of old with a fully interactive version of Netter’s Atlas of the Human Anatomy which allows you to “…navigate through images with the flick of a finger, pinch to zoom, and tap to test your knowledge of muscles, bones, vessels, viscera and the joints. Use study mode to explore images at your own pace and quiz mode to test yourself on what you know“.

The MIMvista App is basically a multi-modality imaging tool that offers “…multi-planar reconstruction of data sets from modalities including CT, PET, MRI and SPECT, as well as multi-modality image fusion. Using the multi-touch interface, users can change image sets and planes; adjust zoom, fusion blending, and window/level; and measure dimensions and SUV“.

Here’s a demo video of the two apps from the WWDC event (YouTube video):

So, as you can see, there’s a lot to like with the launch of the new iPhone 3G and iPhone 2.0 software. The enterprise support alone is something that will at least make the iPhone much more appealing to the corporate customer.

And if you need more convincing, just check out the video below, showing iPhone adoption testimonials within some major corporations, such as Disney, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal (law firm), Genentech, and even the U.S. Army: 

 
Well, all I have left to say is…Where can I get one now !!!

After a rather long “break” from podcasting, I’ve finally got my next episode up on the Med 2.0 Radio podcast (www.med20radio.com) — you can listen to it here.

A few months back, you may recall that I blogged about the iPhone SDK launch and how ePocrates — an electronic drug reference company — was 1 of only 5 companies invited to demo their impending iPhone app at the launch.

Well, in this episode (#03), I had the opportunity to talk to Michelle Snyder, VP of Marketing and Subscription services at ePocrates about:

- The products and mission of the company
- The number of subscribers they have
- The ePocrates fan base and where they use it
- How they decide what mobile platforms to support
- The advantages of using the iPhone platform for ePocrates
- How the iPhone application differs from the current palm-based application
- Synching updates wirelessly on the new versions
- How ePocrates became 1 of only 5 companies to demo at the iPhone SDK launch
- Similarities/Differences in features between the iPhone and current versions
- How ePocrates fits into the daily medical practice
- Whether the new iPhone application can deliver
- 5 question quickfire round

Special thanks to the following people for their help with this interview:
- Jake Coniglio, Erica Morgenstern, and Michelle Snyder from ePocrates
- Anita Bandoji and Neil Chakrabarti for their questions and support

As mentioned in the podcast, here’s the video of the ePocrates demo at the iPhone SDK launch event in March, so you can get a taste/tease of what to expect with their new iPhone application…It’s definitely very cool!

To subscribe to Med 2.0 Radio…Here’s the RSS feed:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/med20radio
And here’s the iTunes subscrition chicklet:

Boy, that’s a long and slightly confusing title! To put it simply, if you’re interseted in using new and emerging media to engage your customers/consumers and build relationships with them, as well as learn from industry case studies on how to implement and execute such programs, then this CBI Conference may be of interest to you.

Here are some of the key topics planned for the conference:

• Evaluate early consumer concerns regarding product understanding to increase launch effectiveness
• Work with your internal regulatory boards to develop guidelines and best practices for online marketing and blogging
• Create personal long-lasting relationships through customized content that speaks to specific targeted demographics
• Utilize social network data collection to create a competitive advantage in marketing and media planning
• Hear how to become part of the patient-to-patient conversation andtake your campaign from a monologue to dialogue approach
• Learn how LASIK engaged young adults through a multi-channelinteractive campaign
• Analyze the strategy behind the Rozerem DTC campaign and media execution
• Hear about Voices of MammoSite — A case study on ROI results andlessons learned from this new media integration Discover how one company grew $67m on the

Amanda from CBI was kind enough to also offer a discount to all Med 2.0 readers. You can use the promo code BTY589 OR click on the image below to download the PDF coupon:

No sooner had I returned to blogging after a long break, than I should come down with a cold that I am now s-l-o-w-l-y recovering from, so my apologies for the slow and irregular postings lately. How ironic, especially considering that this blog is about medicine and pharma .

Anyway, for those of you in the Massachusetts area, you might be interested to know that the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council (Mass TLC) is holding it’s Healthcare/IT Summit on Thursday, June 5th, 2008 at the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge, MA. Here are details of the event below:

MassTLC Healthcare/IT Summit: Placing Bets – Top IT Vendors’ Healthcare Visions and Investments

Thursday, June 5, 2008
7:30-11:00 am
Hyatt Regency, Cambridge, MA

During the past 18 months, we’ve seen significant investment in patient-centric healthcare technology solutions from major IT vendors such as Microsoft (HealthVault), Google (Google Health), IBM (Center for HealthCare Management), Intel (Digital Health Group), and Apple (iPhone as healthcare platform — Kleiner Perkins is investing $100M into companies developing new applications for the iPhone).

We’ve convened a panel of thought leaders from the IT community to brief us on their investments and their vision for the healthcare IT market. We’ve also assembled a panel of healthcare CIOs and IT buyers to give us their perspectives on these investments and expect a lively and provocative exchange. 

Participants:
- Michael Barrett (moderator), President, Critical Mass
- Patrick Boyle, Vice President, America’s Healthcare & Life Sciences, IBM
- Tammi DeVore, Senior Healthcare Manager, ATT
- “ePatient Dave” deBronkart, Cancer patient, healthcare blogger, Patient Advisor, Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative
- David Hendren, General Partner, Catalyst Health Ventures
- John Halamka, CIO, Care Group/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
- Paul Mattes, Managing Director, US Health & Life Sciences, Microsoft
- Dan Nigrin, CIO, Children’s Hospital
- Gary Sevounts, Senior Director, Global Healthcare Solutions, Symantec

Tables for eight people are available for $300/$600 (members/non-members).  Please contact Heather Johnson at heather@masstlc.org to reserve your table.

Thanks to Our Event Sponsor: Microsoft

Thanks to Our Healthcare Cluster Sponsors: Altarum, Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA, Partners HealthCare, and UK Trade and Investment

Register at: http://function.masstlc.org/programs_new/event_single.cfm?eventid=830