Site: OrthoMind
Created: 2008
Founder: Jon Hyman, MD
Number of members: 5,000+
Target audience: Orthopaedic surgeons
About the network: Like PeerCase's Salah, OrthoMind's Hyman believes that the smaller size of his network--which is geared toward orthopaedic surgeons--is more suitable for creating a higher quality environment with regard to discussions. The infrastructure of the site, he says, is set up similarly to Sermo, but the business model of allowing representatives from pharma companies to view the contents of various chats is not emulated.
Howard Luks, chief medical officer for the aforementioned iMedExchange, feels that OrthoMind's approach to social media for physicians is one worth following. "The days of 'friending' or 'following' everyone are starting to come to a close, and people are gravitating toward those people who are interested in the content," Luks says. "As the circles start to narrow and close, I think it limits the scalability of some of the old social media platforms.
"[With OrthoMind] you have a group of 5,000 orthopaedists who are playing quite nicely with one another in the sandbox," Luks continues. "There are 25,000 orthopaedists in the United States, and OrthoMind has 20 percent of them. No other network can claim that."