Webicina is a web-based company founded in 2008 by Bertalan
Mesko, MD, PhD. Based in Budapest, Hungary, Webicina curates the medical
resources of social media either for medical professionals and e-patients.
Webicina that was mentioned by the World Health
Organization; Al Jazeera and Medgadget, features PeRSSonalized Medicine, a free
tool that lets patients and medical professionals select their favourite
resources and read the latest news and articles in one personalized place in 19
languages.
Webicina launched the world's first free online course, The
Social MEDia Course, focusing on social media and medicine with 16 prezis,
tests and badges.
WebMD
WebMD is an American corporation which provides health
information services. It was founded in 1996 by Jim Clark and Pavan Nigam as
Healthscape, later Healtheon, and then acquired WebMD in 1999 to form
Healtheon/WebMD. The name was later shortened to WebMD.
Traffic
WebMD is primarily known for its public website, which has
information regarding health and health care, including a symptom checklist,
pharmacy information, "drugs information", blogs of physicians with
specific topics and a place to store personal medical information.
In the first quarter of 2007, WebMD had the highest number
of unique page visits compared to other leading private and government
healthcare websites. and by February 2011, WebMD’s network of sites was
reaching an average of 86.4 million visitors per month and is the leading
health portal in the United States.
Accreditation
URAC, the largest accrediting body for health care, has
accredited WebMD’s operations in everything from proper disclosures and health
content to security and privacy continuously since 2001.
Revenues
In 2013, the Chicago Tribune reported that WebMD, "has
struggled with a fall in advertising revenue with pharmaceutical companies
slashing marketing budgets as several blockbuster drugs go off patent." In
response, WebMD was investing in changes to its site the company hopes will
entice users who use its site seeking specific information to then linger on
the site reviewing other material.
Business model
WebMD is financed by advertising, third-party contributions
and sponsorships.
WebMD also offers services to physicians and private
clients. For example, they publish WebMD the Magazine, a patient-directed
publication distributed bimonthly to 85 percent of physician waiting rooms.
Medscape is a professional portal for physicians with 30 medical specialty
areas and over 30 physician discussion boards. WebMD Health Services provides
private health management programs and benefit decision-support portals to
employers and health plans.
The WebMD Health Network operates WebMD Health and other
health-related sites including: Medscape, MedicineNet, eMedicine, eMedicineHealth,
RxList, theheart.org, Medscape Education, and other-owned WebMD sites. These
sites provide similar services to those of WebMD; MedicineNet is an online
media publishing company. Medscape offers up-to-date information for physicians
and other healthcare professionals. RxList offers detailed information about
pharmaceutical information on generic and name-brand drugs. eMedicineHealth is
a consumer site offering similar information to that of WebMD. It was first
based on the site created for physicians and healthcare professionals called
eMedicine.com.
