With the idea that physicians know the most about new healthcare technology, Sermo, Inc. has announced a collaboration with Bloomberg, L.P. to launch an online healthcare information database for professional investors.
The Healthcare Exchange will link more than 250,000 professional investors in Bloomberg's global trading system with 90,000 practicing physicians in the network run by Sermo, a Cambridge, Mass.-based developer of an online community for physicians. Sermo's network covers 68 different specialties, and participating physicians are reimbursed for their insights by healthcare, financial services and government institutions.
"The Healthcare Exchange tears down the barriers between those who need information and those who have it," said Daniel Palestrant, MD, Sermo's CEO, during the recent Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco. "For the physicians, this gives them a voice beyond the bounds of their community and allows them to influence how money is invested. For investors, it's a disruptive technology that leads to more transparent information and better investment decisions."
"No small group of opinion leaders can compete with the 'wisdom of the crowd,' and that's what Sermo is all about," Palestrant added.
The Healthcare Exchange will be part of the "BDrug" screen on Bloomberg terminals, offering investors tiered subscriber levels of personalized service, while a "free-for-all" level offers access to most Sermo content including newsfeeds, postings and alerts. Additional levels of fee-based service will offer breaking news surveys, Bloomberg News-generated surveys, customized surveys, Sermo panels and Mdconnect, which links professionals directly with consenting physicians by phone, e-mail or in person.