Peter Sinclair: Health gurus still looking for magic pill

The present tech-wreck really sheeted itself home to me when DrKoop.com fell over.

The medical supersite launched by crafty old C. Everett Koop after he stepped down as US Surgeon-General crumpled in the sense that its share price shrank from something enormous to something minuscule, and by last May it had laid off a third of its staff as the cash ran out.

Dr K is still clinging to the web by his fingernails, looking wildly about him for more venture capital, one suspects, ever since last year's proposed deal with Drug Emporium (now WebRx Health Superstore) collapsed.

Of all the early web startups, DrKoop looked most promising. It had to be a winner, surely? Health is the body's weather, after all - infinitely changeable, inexhaustibly fascinating, utterly inescapable. It's a natural for the net, like news, yet no one seems to have found a way of demonstrating this.

Maybe Dr Tom Mulholland just did.

Otherwise known as Doctor Global, he's the man whose idea of diagnosing and prescribing online sight unseen caused such angst among local medicos last year.

I just about had to prescribe one of his own aspirin and a lie-down to my own doctor, Roger Cox, after I outlined the Doctor Global business model to him.

The perils of prescription issued in virtual consulting-rooms on one side of the world to medicate ills on the other are too obvious to labour, but Dr Mulholland's latest idea - to create a low-cost, in-house, inter-relational database for patients' health-records worldwide - didn't evoke nearly such a hostile reaction from Roger.

In fact, he said he might even consider entering details himself, given full and informed patient agreement in advance.

Central to Dr Mulholland's latest service is the concept of building an online database of Doctor Global Health Records as a central repository for all a patient's health matters. It's also, he says, an easy way to record progress against any health objectives involved in fitness programmes or losing weight.

And if a client needs medical treatment while overseas, these Health Records will be available to inform local medical staff of existing conditions or allergies.

As always, security will be an issue. But according to Dr Mulholland the scheme is catching on fast - just six months away, he says, from breaking even. He has also been paid the compliment of having venture capital come looking for him.

With the word "profit" already being uttered maybe this time the dynamic doctor's dream - 6 per cent of a $US30 billion ($75 billion) industry - will come true, and he will find the secret that eluded Dr Koop in the green fields of Taranaki.

LIES, DAMNED LIES


Return of the bulls? The bears may be growling on a slightly less menacing note. Challenger, Gray & Christmas says job cuts at IT companies fell for the second consecutive month. There were 9533 March job losses compared with 11,649 in February and 12,828 in January.

PC Patriots: PC buyers tend to reflect the personality traits of their country, according to the marketing whizzes at AMD. As well as reflecting a country's language, computers must also be packaged to reflect its culture. The English like to buy PCs and peripherals all at once. Thrifty Germans look for the cheapest computer they can get away with. The French want to "buy their computers at the grocery store, along with the carrots," AMD says (are they serious?). Italians prefer mom 'n' pop outlets.

BT Rhymes With 'Free': Multi.phone terminals (from BT, the company formerly known as British Telecom) are offering free internet and e-mail access as part of a drive to turn the British telephone box into a multimedia kiosk. Tony Blair has pledged to provide online access for all UK citizens by 2005.

BOOKMARKS


NEWEST (1): StarShip

Launched later today courtesy of ASB Bank, this attractive site is an imaginative online guide to the national children's hospital and children's health issues. The interactive online tour will be valuable for future patients, children who live far from Auckland and may be battling fear of the unknown - provided that it does not crash their active desktops as often as it did mine.

Advisory: Find the hidden star and be teleported to a special secret spot in the hospital.

NEWEST (2): IE6 Public Preview.

Here's another nail in Netscape's coffin - the latest beta of Microsoft's new IE. The IE6 Public Preview features a personal bar for simple navigation, an integrated advanced search bar for snap searches and the image toolbar quickly lets you save and print pictures. A contacts bar allows MSN messenger service users to message within the browser window while they surf. Advanced security features include cookie control and a platform for privacy preferences which may be a hit. But this edition of the alpha-browser will not run on Windows 95 systems.

Advisory: Upgrade or forget it.

* petersinclair@email.com


Links


DrKoop.com

Nasdaq

WebRx Health Superstore

< a href="http://www.doctorglobal.co.nz" target="new">Doctor Global

Challenger, Gray & Christmas

AMD

Starship

IE6 Public Preview