WebMD

Shares of WebMD Health are up this week after an analyst upgrade focused Wall Street's attention on the company. JMP Securities analyst William Morrison said he believes the company will generate more traffic than expected for its consumer healthcare Web sites in the second half of the year, as consumers looking for health-related information turn to the company for answers. WebMD Health shares were up 4.4 percent yesterday to $37.60. The company's stock is up nearly 30 percent so far …

Google is weighing a new service that will allow Web surfers to search for specific healthcare information, according to The Wall Street Journal. Although no official announcement has yet been made, the company has assigned a senior engineer to work on the project. The newspaper looks at health-focused "vertical search" engines developed by a number of companies including WebMD, Healthline, Mamahealth and Kosmix.com. Bay area-based MedStory, which currently offers a service for …

> Pharmacy benefit manager Medco reported better-than-expected fourth quarter numbers, beating analyst expectations. Article

> New York Gov. George Pataki (R) remains hospitalized with an infection two weeks after undergoing an emergency appendectomy. Pataki is being treated at New York-Presbyterian. …

WebMD's Marty Wygod is featured in a New York Times article discussing new services that will allow employees in employer-sponsored plans to monitor their health benefits and activities. WebMD has already been running the service for Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield and will be hosting consumer sites and member data on an ASP basis for health plans and employers. Meanwhile, parent company Emdeon appears to be selling off its main parts, the practice management division and the …

to boost need for IT
The nationwide push for health savings accounts and consumer directed plans will lead to an almost immediate need for technology that lets consumers manage their health spending and gives them access to accurate healthcare information, argues Damon Darlin in The New York Times. Intuit has already launched Medical Expense Manager, and services like WebMD and US News and World Report provide detailed information for …

The founders of Healthline, a new healthcare-focused search engine, hope its revolutionary technology can unseat WebMD as the ruler of the potentially huge market for consumer healthcare information. Healthline has a search engine which links to health maps--an innovative navigation technology which helps users put
information in context. The technology was first developed by YourDoctor.com
in the eHealth boom of the late 1990s. After the bust YourDoctor shut its
consumer …

FierceHealthcare will be continuing to track the evolution of new technologies as they are adopted by healthcare organizations. Here are a few which, while not adopted much yet in America's hospitals and clinics, will see a great deal more prominence in 2006:

• Tracking technologies: A mix of active RFID, WiFi, UWB and infra-red technologies are for the first time enabling cost-effective tracking of people and equipment in hospitals. More hospitals will …

More problems at Emdeon as the company (the former dot-com known as WebMD) reports president Tony Holcombe will leave to pursue "other business opportunities." The company also revised its forecast downward for 2006. Although Emdeon is largely focused on its content business, it also offers a relatively popular Web-based claims service for physicians. Article

> Fundamental changes may be on the way at the massive IT program at the Department of Veterans Affairs. New legislation which would "streamline operations" by $1.7 billion passed in the House this week. Article

> Emdeon, (the company formerly known as WebMD), said its revenues and profits was 3.23 for 3Q were up slightly on a year ago, but investors traded the stock down by 15%. …

Last month Emdeon put together a pretty decent IPO for its Web MD Health spin-off. Wall Street liked what it heard about the company's potential in the consumer health segment. But on Saturday the Associated Press ran a long investigative story on the company--the kind CEOs have nightmares about. It detailed an ongoing Justice Department investigation into the company and parent Emdeon (which changed its name from WebMD last month) surrounding accounting questions at Medical …