You're going to have to be in bed with the pharmaceutical companies, and maybe also provide access. Each of the Internet companies vying for physician subscribers offers slightly different services. Here's a little bit about them. Since starting in 1994, it has signed up more than 200,000 U.S. physicians, roughly a third of the country's doctors. Working on a model similar to America Online, Physicians' Online serves as its customers' Internet Service Provider and offers them a variety of members-only content, ranging from drug information to clinical guidelines and surveys.
Doctors can also order medical supplies and take continuing medical education courses.
Most popular are the bulletin boards, organized by medical specialty, where doctors can discuss their most challenging cases and offer each other treatment suggestions. And because Physicians' Online allows only licensed physicians to be members, the discussions are of unusual quality for online message boards. Through a partnership with Merck-Medco Managed Care, physicians can use the network to authorize and submit new prescriptions and renewals. Physicians' Online also helps doctors create Web pages about their businesses and automatically posts daily medical news stories to the sites. Soon patients will be able to fill out a form for prescription refills there as well.