|
|
|
Health Videos Are Streaming to Computers
|
Business New Haven
9/18/2000
By: John Florian
|
A video machine plugged into a site in Branford has programmed itself to change the way medical professionals and patients learn about medicine. This “machine” is Health Info Corp., where president and COO Kevin Aniskovich offers companies a way to help employees with health issues - and help boost morale along the way.
Kevin, what is your company doing, and how?
Health Info produces and captures medical videos for patients, caregivers and physicians. We do this by aligning ourselves with the world's most respected physicians, and by working with professional medical societies and academic medical centers. Our videos are designed for streaming video, but we also make them available on VHS and any other traditional media because of the lack of bandwidth in many areas. Our corporate Web site is healthinfocorp.com, and healthinfoseek.com gets you to our educational service.
What percentage of your market can access streaming video now?
It's quite remarkable, because we're building our videos with low-bandwidth streaming in mind. Somebody who has a mediocre connection - even 56K - can watch the videos quite easily online. We give free previews so you can view something before you choose to buy it. Then you can watch the entire video online for just $5, or order the VHS version [for $19.95].
Do I need special equipment and software to see streaming video?
You need either Real Player or Windows Media Player. Actually, they can be downloaded for free, and most computers already come with Windows Media Player. You should also have a sound card, because there is audio as well as video.
Okay. So how does this benefit me, as a business owner or employee?
A lot of corporations are realizing that if they can keep their employees healthy and happy, they'll have a more motivated workforce, and the people will produce a better product. So corporations are putting our videos on their intranets. For instance, an employee with a question about breast cancer can go to the company's intranet to watch a video that we produced with top-notch doctors. For instance, our breast-cancer video features Barbara Ward, a surgical oncologist and director of the Breast Cancer Center at Yale University.
And selling these videos is how you make your money?
We make it in a couple of different ways. We're a B2B company with diverse revenue streams. Primarily, we license our video archives to other e-health and e-commerce Web sites so their users can access the videos online. Just under 1,000 sites have licensed our videos. Also, our videos are often supported by pharmaceutical grants or sponsorships, and we sell videos directly to physicians and consumers.
And to make sure the videos are credible and reliable, we partner with medical societies like the International Conference on Head and Neck Cancer, and sectors within medical centers like the Yale School of Medicine's section of otolaryngology, and many physicians. We also partner with pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly & Co., which let us maintain their video libraries and capture symposia. They use these videos to train their reps and give to physicians.
Any other applications?
I'd like to stress that our videos are not just for health organizations and dot.coms. Health affects everyone, and it's important to be armed with the facts. There are groups as diverse as construction companies inquiring about the medical effects of lead paint and other potentially harmful agents. So companies that reach out and take a proactive role in calming employee fears of the unknown about health will truly notice a boost, or at least a maintenance of, positive employee morale. That's what we're helping them to do.
|
Go FirstGo PreviousGo
NextGo LastGo
to Index
|
|
