Health Industry Urged to Embrace Internet

A pair of powerful voices from the worlds of computing and medicine-- Intel Corp. Chairman Andrew Grove and former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop -- said yesterday the health care industry needs to follow its customers onto the technology bandwagon.

"Tens of millions of consumers are online," Grove told a press conference at Internet Health Day, an event that drew 700 people and 20 health-related technology companies to the Hyatt Embarcadero Hotel in San Francisco. "Members of the health care community can either participate in this revolution or become bystanders to it."

Up to a third of all Internet users seek out health and medical information online, and their numbers are growing by 70 percent annually, according to research by ING Baring Furman Selz LLC.

Koop, who is now a scholar at Dartmouth University and an entrepreneur who's founded a health-related Web site at www.drkoop.com, hailed the Internet as a way for patients to go beyond what their doctors tell them.

Koop said he's always told patients, "Take charge of your health."

"In this day of managed care, I can add, 'If you don't, nobody else will,'" he said.

Although the health care industry has been reluctant to embrace computing, a new crop of startups is springing up to offer health-related information to online consumers.

BabyCenter, a San Francisco startup for new and expectant parents, showed yesterday that it's moving from merely providing information to adding electronic commerce to its Web site. "We just closed a $10 million round" of venture financing, said Matt Glickman, 32, the chief executive and founder of the 55-employee company. "People see huge potential."

Minnesota's esteemed Mayo Clinic was on hand to tout its newest offering, Web sites that employers can link to to give workers information about wellness and how to prevent health problems. The clinic, a nonprofit venture, also has a public site with information for the general public.

For the workplace site, companies like Intel, Dow Corning, Lucent Technologies and Dell Computer have already signed up, according to Michael Casey of Mayo HealthQuest. "As more and more people have PCs and Internet access, it's just a natural progression," Casey said.

That certainly is Intel's hope. Grove acknowledged that for the world's largest maker of computer chips, which sponsored yesterday's event, "it's in our enlightened self-interest that this process should go on. It's another reason for people to own and use computers."

Yet Grove also acknowledged that, on the issue of health, his interest is as much personal as it is economic.

He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1994 and has spoken publicly about how he's followed a course of treatment that is sometimes at odds with his doctors' recommendations, such as foregoing surgery in favor of hormone therapy, high-dose radiation and a new diet. He said yesterday that his health was fine.

In a 1996 article he wrote for Fortune magazing, Grove told how he used the CompuServe online service to gather information and get support while he struggled with his diagnosis.

"I experienced the powers of it," he said yesterday. "I was overwhelmed by the amount of information that was available."

Consumers going online for health information must exercise caution, experts said. "The right information and the wrong information glows on the computer screen with the same intensity," Koop said.

He urged people to take information to their doctor for validation, although he also cautioned patients not to be "health nuts who bring in reams of information."

David Ansley, medical editor of OnHealth Network Co., a Web site based in Seattle, said consumers should not just seek advice from doctors on the Web, but also look to journalists and to fellow patients. "For breast cancer patients, women who have been through it will tell them things the hospital and the doctor aren't going to tell them," he said.

Grove uses a simple test before relying on a Web site for information. "When I get on a Web site, I ask it questions to which I know the answer," he said. "If the Web site coughs up the wrong answer, I'm out of there."