Steve Case, founder of America Online, on Monday will launch RevolutionHealth.com, a Web site that stores users' health records and provides telephone services that help consumers with health care issues, the Wall Street Journal reports. Also, WebMD on Monday will announce a revamped Web site that includes some tools that match those offered by RevolutionHealth.com.
RevolutionHealth.com
The services on Revolution initially will be offered at no cost, but subscribers eventually will pay about $100 annually for premium services, such as telephone services. Revolution will provide at no cost certain Web site features, such as disease information, articles and forums. Users who sign up online within 90 days will get a no-cost, one-year trial of the telephone-consulting and digital-record services.
Case, who has invested about $100 million of his own money into the company, began creating Revolution three years ago after resigning from AOL Time Warner. Revolution is seeking businesses, such as luxury condominiums and spas, but Case said health care is the company's main concern.
Revolution envisions a time when users will have online "health dashboards" that they use to manage their information, said Revolution CEO John Pleasants.
One of Revolution's key ideas is that "Americans' health care experience can be packaged under one brand," according to the Journal. However, Paul Ginsburg, president of the think tank Center for Studying Health System Change, said, "They're talking about tying together a lot of different services, most of which no one has been very successful in developing."
WebMD
WebMD in the past has offered some paid services, but the new site will allow users to store and maintain health records at no cost and join health forums. The site gets most of its revenue from ads.
WebMD "floundered during the dot-com bust," but it went on to reach an audience of 35 million unique users in the fourth quarter of 2006, and its stock price has nearly tripled to $45 per share, according to the Journal.
Competition
The most popular health Web sites are WebMD and the National Institutes of Health, followed by general search engines Yahoo, MSN and About.com.
Everydayhealth.com, a site that launched in October 2006, is a no-cost site that aims to provide simplified health information. The site will be revamped this year to offer more personalized services, the Journal reports.
"This is a market that can support multiple players," said WebMD CEO Wayne Gattinella. However, he said WebMD has a "strong head start."
Pleasants said, "If they continue to innovate and raise the bar, it makes it tougher, but it'll make us better" (Won Tesoriero, Wall Street Journal, 1/22).