Back in December, 2005, I was invited by Dr. Frank Antwerpes (photo on left), CEO of DocCheck, a German Internet portal for physicians, to his European Medical Portal Meeting in Berlin, Germany.I had a great time there and stayed at the upscale, but hard to find, Hotel Q!, winner of the Travel & Leisure's Design Award 2005 (Best Design Hotel) and located a few steps from Kurfürstendamm, Berlin’s famous shopping mile packed with boutiques, restaurants, bars and galleries.
You can read all about my experience and learn a thing or two about DocCheck from the Pharma Marketing News article I wrote (see "DocCheck: Das Portal," free, limited-time access to pdf reprint here).
A lot has changed in 2 years -- specifically Web 2.0 and social networking. DocCheck -- I am happy to see -- has kept up and is now opening its doors to US physicians (see press release below).
I will be speaking with Dr. Antwerpes on my Pharma Marketing Talk podcast tomorrow (December 6) at 10 AM eastern time. You can listen in live here and start an online chat with me during the podcast or call in and ask questions. For more details about this podcast see "Building the First Global Community of Doctors."
Meanwhile, here's the press release:
DocCheck® establishes worldwide community of healthcare professionals
Cologne, 5 December 2007 – Following the successful launch of the DocCheck® Faces network in Germany, DocCheck, the leading community for medical professionals in Europe, is now making its social networking package available in other countries. The Italian version is already online. English, Spanish and French versions will follow in January 2008. The English version is also aimed at the US market. Within DocCheck Faces, medical practitioners can put their profile on show, set up their own forums and exchange news with colleagues.
In addition to the new community, services such as DocCheck Litbot (a program for managing medical publications) and the English-language DocCheck e-journal will be available to US physicians.
“Our aim is to establish a global community of healthcare professionals, thereby significantly improving international exchanges between physicians”, explains Dr. Frank Antwerpes, DocCheck’s CEO.
Over half a million registered users worldwide
With over 500,000 users, DocCheck is one of the most heavily subscribed medical portals in the world. Around 8,000 new DocCheck users register each month. While growth was primarily concentrated in Europe up to 2006, the number of users outside the EU has increased disproportionately in recent months. Already one in two physicians in Germany, where the community was first introduced, is a member of DocCheck.
DocCheck Medical Services GmbH
With over 500,000 registered members, DocCheck is the largest and fastest-growing B2B portal for medical professionals in Europe. Their password system is used to control access to over 1,700 websites of market-leading pharmaceutical companies in Germany. Online market research, eMarketing, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) lie at the heart of DocCheck’s business model. Furthermore, the link to DocCheck Shop offers all members an eCommerce platform for the online purchase of over 15,000 items. DocCheck is a 100% owned subsidiary of DocCheck AG.
Press contact
DocCheck AG
Tanja Mumme
Corporate Communications
Vogelsanger Str. 66
50823 Cologne
Germany
Tel: +49-221-92053-139
Fax: +49-221-92053-133
E-mail: presse@doccheck.com
Hey John guess what there has been, albeit small, a global network of docs since the early days of the Internet (when the WWW was not the only thing on the net!). I was an early member of the International Pediatric Chat, now at www.pedschat.org. This is truly an international group with members from all over the globe, See history at http://www.pedschat.org/extras/history.htm
ReplyDeleteBack then in 1996 we used internet relay chat channels rather than web based chat. I have one fond memory I must share, it wos a Tuesday afteroon and I was off for the day, we had about half a dozen pediatricians online, fromt the US, Israel, Bosnia (at war),and New Zealand. We were talking the peds guy from Bosnia through the management questions he had about a severly dehydrated infaht. The israelis signed off to watch an evening tV program and the peds from NZ had to finish hsi cornflakes (breakfast) but I thing we really helped that kid in Bosnia!