AETNA: Harvard to Provide Info. for Insurer’s Consumer Health Web Site

      Harvard Medical School will provide consumer health care information for Aetna U.S. Healthcare's InteliHealth Web site, the Boston Globe reports. Under the agreement, Harvard will have "strict" editorial control, including authority over advertisements placed next to the school's name, according to Harvard Medical School spokesperson Don Gibbons. Aetna officials hope the school's expertise will help the company expand its site to include more information about the health needs of children and minority consumers. Benjamin Moulton, executive director of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics, believes the arrangement "represents potential good, in a sense that more information is made available to the lay public." But, he added, "it also represents some conflict issues that should be well thought out." The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. Harvard will replace Johns Hopkins University as the primary information provider. Johns Hopkins bowed out of the venture in March after Aetna decided to expand its Internet strategy. More than one million people visit the site each month (Stoughton, 5/2).