Medem, Cerner form alliance for consultations

The deal between the AMA- and medical-society-owned Web service and the hospital information supplier will boost business for both.

By Tyler Chin, AMNews staff. Feb. 24, 2003.

Medem Inc. and Cerner Corp. have signed a deal that could make online consultation services available to thousands of physicians affiliated with hospitals that are Cerner clients.

Under the deal, Cerner will integrate Medem's secure online consultation service into PowerLink, a physician Web portal, and IQHealth, a patient Web portal.

Cerner sells the products to hospitals, which use them to exchange information electronically with affiliated physicians and patients.

Typically, hospitals use the products to give doctors and patients access to drug information, laboratory results and other data.

The two companies, which declined to disclose financial terms of the agreement, said the deal gives them access to more potential clients.

Medem will gain access to tens of thousands of office-based physicians affiliated with more than 1,000 hospitals and health systems that use Cerner's products, said Edward Fotsch, MD, CEO of Medem, which is partly owned by the American Medical Association and other medical societies.

"We get a new source of distribution of our network services," Dr. Fotsch said.

Medem is betting that physicians who get access to Cerner's products by way of hospitals will be motivated to sign up for and use the online consultation service because it gives them a way to market their practices to new patients and an additional source of income.