NASHVILLE: Merger Creates Online News Portal and Community for Health Care Professionals
HealthLeaders and Harkey & Associates, two health care information companies, merged two weeks ago to create a new company that plans to provide health care business information, opinion and research to health care professionals via the Internet and other media outlets, the Tennessean reports. HealthLeaders is an on-line health care news and community site that spun off from Franklin, Tenn.-based Passport Health Communications before merging with Harkey, a 13-year-old publisher of 13 state-specific health care industry newsletters. The new Nashville-based venture, also called HealthLeaders, is led by Scott McQuigg, former publisher of the Nashville Business Journal. Mcquigg said that combining the two companies was a logical step, adding, "I really believe in this management team ... and I'm excited for it's potential." HealthLeaders' new Website, launched on June 26, allows free access to health care business news links, and provides an on-line community in which professionals can discuss and debate health care topics in chat rooms or by posting their own written work. HealthLeaders' media component includes Harkey's family of newsletters, which has served as a source of revenue for the venture. McQuigg cited other potential strategies to generate revenue, including "subscription fees for industry data and research [and] e-commerce partnerships and advertising tied to the HealthLeaders Web site." Investors in the project were brought together by the CEO of HealthStream, Robert Frist Jr., nephew of Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) (Russell, 6/29).
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