Advertising giant will track what you read on the Web

Omnicom, a company that represents major drugmakers, is acquiring e-health firms to obtain access to physicians' and patients' personal information.

By Tyler Chin, amednews staff. Oct. 23/30, 2000.

An advertising agency representing most of the world's 50 largest pharmaceutical companies is investing tens of millions of dollars in e-health companies. The reason: to get personal information about physicians and their patients.

New York-based advertising giant Omnicom Group Inc. said it has acquired between 15% and 30% ownership in five e-health companies, all of which either have or will build databases containing users' personal information and profiles of what those users view on the companies' sites.

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Two of those companies -- eMedicine.com Inc. and World Medical Leaders Inc. -- target physicians. Two others, Caresoft Inc. and Healthology Inc., target consumers. Another, eResearch Technology Inc., focuses on clinical trial participants.

Thomas L. Harrison, chair and CEO of Diversified Agency Services, the Omnicom division that is spearheading the initiative, wouldn't say how much Omnicom has invested. But according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company has put $9.5 million into eResearch Technology. It has also invested $10 million in eMedicine.com, said Scott Plantz, MD, CEO of the St. Petersburg, Fla.-based company.

The purchases are far more expensive than just buying mailing lists of physicians, but Omnicom figures the payoff could be greater because its clients -- 42 of the world's top 50 drug companies -- would be able to, in theory, reach exactly the physicians and patients they want.

For example, if a pharmaceutical company wants to reach diabetics with congestive heart failure, the e-health firms "can cut their database so we can do that," said Harrison.

Omnicom says no one will give his or her personal information without the sites' asking for it. However, this is the sort of project that has made privacy advocates nervous in the past.

Most notably, the California HealthCare Foundation, a philanthropic group based in Oakland, earlier this year reported that several prominent Web sites shared users' personal information with third parties, including advertisers, without users' knowledge and permission, despite the sites' claim that they had gotten consent.

Given the sensitivity of the personal and medical data its e-health partners will compile, Omnicom will have to take steps beyond obtaining simply the affirmative consent of physicians and patients, said Andrew Shen, policy analyst at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit research group in Washington, D.C.

"The issue is how informed the consent decision is. Does the consumer understand what he is giving permission to?" Shen said. "It's very easy to portray opting in or affirmative consent in a very positive manner, which is, 'By signing for our service, you will receive deals and information [you are interested in].' How they implement that is going to be important."

It also will be important for the e-health companies to disclose their relationship with Omnicom, Shen said. "Obviously they should disclose as much as they can. In this instance, they know the name of the company and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't disclose it."

The e-health companies say that protecting the privacy of their users is their top priority. They won't sell the data, and their users will have to request or consent to receive information from pharmaceutical companies before any material is forwarded to them, the companies said.

For example, Caresoft CEO J.J. Singh said his company's policy "is very strict. The data that patients, doctors or other sources share with us are kept confidential and secure ... [They are] not shared with any third party, including our investors."

When users register to use Caresoft's services, they will be asked whether they want to receive information from third parties, Singh said. Assuming permission has been granted, "we deliver that information to our users when a company comes to us," he said. "At no time does the company know who the consumer is or get the consumer's data."

Another company, World Medical Leaders, plans to offer physicians online educational material that it hopes will be sponsored by pharmaceutical companies and other entities. The company will clearly identify the sponsor. Each time a physician wants to learn more about the sponsoring company's products, he or she will have to click on a hypertext link to go to the sponsor's Web site or receive information from World Medical, said Gerald Imber, MD, a plastic surgeon who co-founded the company.

But do physicians want it?

Physicians will benefit because they will receive information that is relevant to them and that they agreed to receive, Harrison said.

Dr. Plantz agrees. "If we get a lot of physicians who come to our site and want to receive individual information [that] will be more helpful. Cardiologists don't want to receive pathology information and pathologists don't want cardiology information."

But some doctors don't believe permission-based online advertising will make their lives better or easier.

"I don't like it and would much rather do without it" because it will ultimately force doctors to waste valuable patient time, said John T. Boyer, MD, a geriatrics and rheumatology specialist at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson.

Although he won't use the sites or consent to receive information online from third parties, Dr. Boyer said he will nevertheless be affected by Omnicom's initiative and others like it. Online advertising is another form of direct-to-consumer advertising that already has adversely impacted his practice, he said.

Many patients now ask for medications they see advertised on television that often aren't appropriate for their conditions, Dr. Boyer said. Consequently, he said he spends a considerable amount of time explaining why the medications are inappropriate and soothing patients so they won't be offended.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

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Omnicom Group Inc., an advertising and marketing company (http://www.omnicomgroup.com/)

Caresoft Inc. delivers personalized health care services to consumers through the DailyApple.com, an Internet portal it operates (http://www.caresoft.com/)

eMedicine.com Inc. allows physicians to write or read medical textbooks online (http://www.emedicine.com/)

eResearch Technology Inc. sells Internet-based software that automates parts of clinical trials (http://www.eresearchtechnology.com/)

Healthology Inc. offers streaming audio and video health information over the Web to consumers(http://www.healthology.com/)

World Medical Leaders Inc. plans to offer online CME content to physicians (http://www.wml.com/)