Commercial Services and Products 1

It is my intention to keep this blog commercial-free. However, some of our blog readers represent companies that are trying to make a meaningful difference in the health care space. Having been a health IT entrepreneur myself, I believe its important to give them a voice too.

So here's my plan. From Monday to Friday all eHealthRisk posts will be commercial-free. On weekends I will post news from companies that have contacted me during the week. You will recognize the posts because they will be titled "Commercial Services and Products #". Inclusion on the blog does NOT represent endorsement of the service or product, though I will review the information in every post to ensure that it is reasonable and not misleading to eHealthRisk readers. Please contact me if you find anything to the contrary.

iMedix

Our first commercial post comes from iMedix, a "community powered health search engine" according to co-founder Iri Amirav. It is a site that enables people with different health conditions to communicate and share experiences with others with the same condition. If for example you have diabetes or asthma, you can post your questions or experiences concerning the disease to a blog or discussion forum. Its essentially an Internet self-health group.

There's obviously a significant opportunity to empower patients with a site like this. There are also a number of risk issues including privacy and safety risks that service providers like iMedix need to address. iMedix is seeking comments and feedback from eHealthRisk readers on the Alpha version of its site.

In order to get into the alpha site you need a user ID and password that can be obtained by sending a blank email to ehealthrisk@imedix.com. They have set up accounts for 50 eHealthRisk readers.

Kroll Fraud Solutions

Our second commercial post this week comes from Kroll Fraud Solutions. Brian Lapidus, Senior Vice President of Kroll has published an FAQ on identity theft titled Identity Theft Protection for Healthcare Companies. This post has been picked up by several health IT blogs. It is a good primer for those who have an interest in identity theft.