Medical ‘eCooperative’ to Offer Free Web Services to Members
Nine small medical associations, including the California Academy of Family Physicians, have banded together to form the Medical Society eCooperative, which will offer free Web services to their combined 80,000 members, the Wall Street Journal reports. The cooperative will offer services such as Web sites for doctors with daily news updates, online continuing medical education and the option to establish online physician chat forums. ECooperative also will enable physicians to "customize" their practice Web sites, offering patients a secure email option and "educational materials vetted by the societies." The cooperative is sponsored in part by Pharmacia Corp., and physicians' sites will feature a "small" Pharmacia logo. According to California Academy of Family Physicians Assistant Executive Director Shelly Rodrigues, the societies will decide whether to accept advertising on members' sites on an individual basis. Rodrigues added that the academy, which recently launched the service, hopes to sign up 20% of its 4,100 active members over the next two years. Other groups participating in the cooperative include the American College of Sports Medicine, the American Gastroenterological Association, the American Medical Women's Association, the American Osteopathic Association, the Association of Black Cardiologists, the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians, the International College of Surgeons and the North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians (Carrns, Wall Street Journal, 1/8).
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