Stanford launches start-up
to improve information access for physicians
BY KRISTA CONGER
Stanford has been sending
scholars out the door for more than 100 years. But on May
9th, the University's newest graduate was sporting not a
PhD or an MBA, but a new set of letters -- dot com. Based
on a highly successful internal service known as SHINE,
e-SKOLAR will allow clinicians across the country to
perform the integrated searches of multiple medical
reference sources that have been popular with Stanford
physicians for years. Participating physicians will also
have the opportunity to earn continuing medical education
credits through their use of the system.
"e-SKOLAR has
provided us with a great opportunity to respond to the
needs of physicians worldwide," said Eugene Bauer,
MD, vice president of Stanford University Medical Center
and dean of the School of Medicine. "We believe the
service will significantly raise the bar of medical
practice by bringing rapid knowledge to the point of
care."
"e-SKOLAR's knowledge
service provider model gives us the chance to realize the
true potential of the Web -- to link knowledge users and
knowledge creators in a mediated system that extends the
University from a training resource to a sustaining
resource," said Paul Lippe, CEO of e-SKOLAR.
"Addressing important challenges, such as improving
medical care, by leveraging the Web, can do good while
creating a very good business."
The launch of e-SKOLAR,
Stanford University's first Internet spin-off, represents
an extension of the University's core mission -- to
promote knowledge and enhance learning. The School of
Medicine will be actively supporting e-SKOLAR with a
combination of technology transfer, ongoing content
collaboration and oversight.
e-SKOLAR's fast,
cross-referenced searches of textbooks, medical journals,
drug databases and clinical guidelines, coupled with the
opportunity for physicians to learn and earn CME credit
online will form the basis of a unique Internet-based
service known as Stanford SKOLAR, M.D.
"Stanford SKOLAR,
M.D. represents a new category of integrated knowledge
environment for medical professionals," said Phyllis
Gardner, MD, senior associate dean for education and
student affairs at the School of Medicine. "It
combines the immediacy and reach of the Web with the
depth and commitment to quality of an academic medical
center."
Stanford SKOLAR, M.D.
evolved out of the Stanford Health Information Network
for Education, or SHINE. Over the last four years, SHINE
was developed by Ken Melmon, MD, associate dean for
postgraduate medical education, in collaboration with an
interdisciplinary team of faculty members and students
from the schools of computer science and medicine.
SKOLAR, M.D. has become an
essential resource for Stanford physicians seeking to
stay abreast of the exponentially increasing amount of
medical information available in textbooks, journal
articles, drug databases and updated clinical guidelines.
By entering an unstructured query, a clinician can pull
up disease or symptom information ranging from basic
definitions to drug dosage schedules for patients with
complicating factors such as pregnancy or a secondary
illness. Stanford physicians currently use the service to
supplement their clinical decision-making.
"We have found that
Stanford clinicians are actually using the system in the
presence of their patients, indicating a very high degree
of confidence in the information and how it is
presented," Melmon said. "We have also found
that clinicians who leave Stanford continue to request
access to the service. Once physicians have experienced
having this level of information at their fingertips,
they are unwilling to accept less."
With the formation of
e-SKOLAR, the service will no longer be restricted to the
Stanford community. Any physician or medical group can
subscribe to Stanford SKOLAR, M.D. for an annual fee of
$240 per user. e-SKOLAR's first distribution partner will
be Agilent Technologies, Inc. (a subsidiary of
Hewlett-Packard), which will incorporate SKOLAR in a new
generation of Internet-enabled medical product devices.
The widespread demand for
real-time access to clinically relevant information was
confirmed by a recent survey by the consulting firm
McKinsey & Co. In the study, 74 percent of physicians
surveyed described Stanford SKOLAR, M.D. as "very
useful" and more than 50 percent indicated they
would use the service at least once a day.
A March 2000 report by the
Institute of Medicine highlighted the need for access to
accurate, timely information at the point of care to
improve both the safety and quality of health care in
America. The report emphasized the important role to be
played by electronic databases with integrated interfaces
in knowledge acquisition.
Not only does e-SKOLAR
give physicians the information they need when they need
it -- allowing them to make informed decisions and better
serve their patients -- e-SKOLAR's unique structure also
allows them to learn while using the system. This
integrated approach mirrors Stanford's commitment to
improving medical care and promoting education.
"By providing
point-of-practice responses to physicians' information
needs, Stanford SKOLAR, M.D. reintegrates doing and
learning, and validates that lifelong learning and
professional practice are integrally related," said
Gardner.
e-SKOLAR was formally
launched yesterday during the 2000 e-Health Summit, which
took place on the Stanford campus, May 8th and 9th.
Titled "Health in the Digital Age," the summit
served as a forum for the discussion of the impact of
digital information and Internet-based technology on
health care in the 21st century.
The School of Medicine
chose to launch e-SKOLAR as a company because it
recognized that for the system to achieve its full
potential benefit to users in the health care system
overall, it would need to grow rapidly, requiring the
flexibility and speed of a new business structure. While
the type of support the University is providing to
e-SKOLAR is a first, the University has taken an equity
interest in other companies developed from technology
created at Stanford.
e-SKOLAR currently boasts
a 17-member team. Among them is Lippe, who joined
e-SKOLAR as CEO from a post of senior vice president of
business and market development at Synopsys; Ken Melmon,
MD, who will serve as chief medical officer; Jonny
Goldman, vice president of research and development; Rose
Vasquez, MD, MBA, vice president of medical affairs; and
Sue Sweeney, vice president of sales & marketing. SR
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