Comments on: Monday Morning Update 8/25/08 http://histalk2.com/2008/08/23/monday-morning-update-82508/ Healthcare IT News and Opinion Tue, 22 May 2012 01:22:41 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: John@ChilmarkResearch http://histalk2.com/2008/08/23/monday-morning-update-82508/comment-page-1/#comment-1988 John@ChilmarkResearch Mon, 25 Aug 2008 15:02:23 +0000 http://histalk2.com/2008/08/23/monday-morning-update-82508/#comment-1988 Not too surprising that Revolution Health is going up in smoke. Not that I am against a revolution of sorts in the healthcare sector, its just that there are so many vested interests with their fat hands deep in the cookie jar that any revolution in this sector will not occur within the short time horizon of such a start-up. Of course, one can not ignore Rev Health's strategy de jour approach. Sure, they picked up some potentially valuable properties, but there seemed to be no overarching strategy as to how these properties would be knitted together to create a comprehensive consumer-centric offering. God awful execution! And I do respectfully differ with our esteemed host, Mr. HIStalk on a couple of points. The online stuff honestly was not that good, just me to offerings, no competitive differentiation with what was already out there. Also, nothing wrong with the advertising model, it you can make it work. Pharma, the big ad spender in this industry still spends the vast majority on traditionally media. Now that they can no longer give trinkets to physicians, they have even more $$$ to spend and increasingly looking for new ways to reach target audiences. There is a lot of $$$ here to tap into, thus not at all surprising to see WebMD in their last earning call talk almost exclusively about this opportunity and how they plan to capitalize on it. If I was an investor in one of these start-ups, that is where I'd want the company focusing attention -of course if it made sense with the core offering. Not too surprising that Revolution Health is going up in smoke. Not that I am against a revolution of sorts in the healthcare sector, its just that there are so many vested interests with their fat hands deep in the cookie jar that any revolution in this sector will not occur within the short time horizon of such a start-up. Of course, one can not ignore Rev Health’s strategy de jour approach. Sure, they picked up some potentially valuable properties, but there seemed to be no overarching strategy as to how these properties would be knitted together to create a comprehensive consumer-centric offering. God awful execution!

And I do respectfully differ with our esteemed host, Mr. HIStalk on a couple of points. The online stuff honestly was not that good, just me to offerings, no competitive differentiation with what was already out there. Also, nothing wrong with the advertising model, it you can make it work. Pharma, the big ad spender in this industry still spends the vast majority on traditionally media. Now that they can no longer give trinkets to physicians, they have even more $$$ to spend and increasingly looking for new ways to reach target audiences. There is a lot of $$$ here to tap into, thus not at all surprising to see WebMD in their last earning call talk almost exclusively about this opportunity and how they plan to capitalize on it. If I was an investor in one of these start-ups, that is where I’d want the company focusing attention -of course if it made sense with the core offering.

]]>