silicon alley reporter
September 2001

Just What the Doctor Ordered

Authored by Justin Bishop


Instead of flipping through well-thumbed copies of People and Highlights while sitting on the crisp white paper of your doctor's examination table, you might as well be learning a little bit about why you're there. Or so think the folks at Wired.MD, a Portland, Ore.-based company that's streaming video right into the exam room.

While the Internet has become a valuable resource, most people still rely on doctors as their primary source of medical information. Wired.MD is going a step further, trying to unite physicians, patients, and the Internet. The first company to offer Web-based patient education to healthcare professionals, Wired.MD allows a nurse to show patients a video delivering standard information-about everything from neurology to gynecology-before the doctor even steps through the door.

The device presents information through several "retention-based elements": text, talking heads, graphic representation, medical illustrations, and stock film footage, such as a man smoking (because it isn't healthy) or a woman jogging correctly (because it is). Educated patients, according to founder Mark Friess, are more capable of discussing whatever's ailing them. Once at home, patients can use a doctor-issued password to further review information about their condition.

Just 16 months old, the company was formed after Friess realized the need for some kind of convergence while attending medical school at Oregon Health & Science University.

"I saw physicians challenged for time, and patients often left with questions about their condition," he says. Funding first came from family and friends, then from a round of angel investment. Later, Friess formed strategic partnerships with tech firm AT&T Hypergrowth and medical book publisher Mosby. Today, the company employs 16 people in its downtown Portland offices.

Friess doesn't think his service will ever replace the old tongue depressor and rubber hammer, but it could make for more knowledgeable patients. Dr. Scott Fields, a family physician who has been using Wired.MD in his clinic for about five months, agrees: "I don't use it to replace face-to-face interaction," Fields says. "I use it to facilitate better and more informed interaction."