The Coming Battle for the Hearts and Minds of 'Cyberchondriacs'.

Health/Medical Writers

ROCHESTER, N.Y.--(BW HealthWire)--Feb. 20, 2001

Harris Interactive Research Points to Growing Competition Among

Physicians, Pharmaceutical and Insurance Companies as They Try to

Forge Online Relationships With Health Care Consumers

Latest Harris Interactive (Nasdaq: HPOL) health care research data show that well over 100 million adult Americans have gone online at least once to look for health or medical information.

Humphrey Taylor, chairman of The Harris Poll at Harris Interactive, coined the term "Cyberchondriacs" which describes these individuals. The online activities of Cyberchondriacs have captured the attention of physicians, and pharmaceutical and health insurance companies, who have now started to battle for the hearts and minds of these online health care consumers.

The full version of this article can be found in the downloadable PDF of this week's Harris Interactive Health Care News, issue 7 at http://www.harrisinteractive.com/about/vert_healthcare.asp.

Explosive growth of Internet usage will surely transform the doctor-patient relationship

Before long, most doctors and their patients will be using the Internet to fix appointments, to refill prescriptions, to read about the latest medical research, to ask for and provide information and advice, and (such is the Internet) to do many things we have not yet thought of. But physicians are not the only people who will use the Internet to build relations with health care consumers. The large corporate battalions also want to build their own online relationships with patients.

The Internet is, by a wide margin, the fastest growing technology in history. It is a revolution that has only just begun, and nobody knows where it will take us. Initially, like all new technologies, it is being used to do old things better, faster or cheaper. Increasingly however, it is being used to do completely new things that people could not do at all, or could not afford to do, previously. Nobody knows, with any certainty, how all of this will transform the health care marketplace in the long run. But whatever they are, the effects will be huge.

The Pharmaceutical Industry

Right now, pharmaceutical companies are investing huge sums of money in what they call 'relationship marketing,' 'direct to patient marketing' or 'database marketing.' This is different than direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising that uses traditional TV and print media, because it involves building databases of e-mail addresses of patients who have particular medical conditions. These are patients with whom they can develop one-on-one relationships through the Internet. For example, drug companies are building email databases of people with hypertension, diabetes, arthritis and allergies. If they succeed, this will forever change the doctor-patient relationship in that patients, in effect, will be receiving medical advice (including "compliance management") from someone other than their doctors.

The Health Insurance and Managed Care

The health insurance and managed care industries have started building email databases of their own plan members so that they can build closer relationships with them. They want to bond with their members and (the general unpopularity of managed care notwithstanding) they probably will succeed to some extent. Most people are still reasonably satisfied with their own health plans even if they think managed care, in general, stinks.

According to recent reports by Ernst and Young and other sources, some health plans are already beginning to use the Internet to communicate with their members or potential members about:

-- claims status reports

-- online prescription drug ordering

-- enrollment applications

-- replacement ID cards

-- benefit details

-- customer feedback reports

-- ability to change account information online

-- report cards on medical groups, physicians and hospitals

-- health club membership

-- customer service e-mail

-- health assessment

-- referral information

One reason why "direct-to-patient" online marketing will grow very quickly is that the Internet makes it possible to send highly personalized messages, tailored to the specific needs and interests of millions of individual patients, at a ridiculously small cost. And patients can reply from their homes at no cost to themselves. This is as big a communications revolution as Guttenberg's printing press.

Managed care and insurance companies want to build relationships with their members for demand management (getting people to seek and receive medical care when, and only when, appropriate), case management, and member retention. The drug companies want to build relationships with patients so that they will ask questions about their drugs, use their drugs appropriately and refill their prescriptions when necessary. None of this is inherently bad for physicians or patients - and much of it is good. However, the risk to physicians is that their patients may come to rely more on advice from drug companies and insurers and become less dependent on advice from their doctors, weakening the doctor-patient relationship.

Physicians, Patients and the Internet

Physicians enter with a huge advantage; they have earned the trust and respect of their patients to an extent that pharmaceutical companies, let alone insurance companies, have not, and never will. But the health care industry has enormous financial resources and will invest very heavily in building one-on-one Internet-based relationships with the public. If physicians do nothing much, they will lose this battle by default.

Until now, only about three percent of adult Americans have either contacted or received communications from their physicians online. Four major issues need to be addressed before this can become commonplace:

1. Doctor-patient communications must be secure to protect

patient privacy. 2. Physicians must know how to protect themselves from

unreasonable malpractice claims. 3. Physicians need to be compensated appropriately for providing

care online. 4. Physicians must be able to connect their patients to a good

online "library" of relevant medical information.

All of these issues are now being addressed and, we believe, will soon be resolved.

Our latest data show almost 49% of Americans are online from home, and over 63% of adults are online from home, work, school, university or the library. In a few years, almost everyone will be using the Internet as well and as much as the 10% of the public who use it most effectively now. The battle to determine who controls patients - or at least who most influences them - has only just begun.

                  CYBERCHONDRIACS: TRENDS 1998 - 2000

                             June/July   June     May/June   November
                               1998      1999      2000        2000


The online population (% of
all adults who were online (a)) 38%       46%       56%        63%

Cyberchondriacs:
     % of all those online
     who had ever looked        71%       74%       86%        83%
     for health information

     % of all adults who
     had ever looked for        27%       34%       48%        52%
     health information
     on-line

     Numbers of adults who
     had ever looked for        54        69        98       106
     health information         million   million   million  million
     online

(a) Includes those online from home, office, school, library or other
location



                          TRENDS 1995 - 2000
               Online from home, work or other location

                           Base: All Adults

                        1995     1996     1997    1998    1999   2000
                        Sept./   June/    May/    Jan./   Dec.   Oct.-
                        Nov.     Sept.    June    Feb.           Nov.
All Online               9        17       30      35      56      63
Online at home           N/A      16       16      22      46      49
Online at work           N/A      16       18      22      N/A     29
Online at other
 location (a)            N/A      N/A      N/A     N/A     N/A     17

(a) Includes schools and libraries

About Harris Interactive

Harris Interactive (Nasdaq: HPOL), the global leader in online market research, uses Internet-based and traditional methodologies to provide its clients with information about the views, experiences, behaviors and attitudes of people worldwide. Known for its Harris Poll, Harris Interactive has 45 years of experience in providing its clients with market research and polling services including custom, multi-client and service bureau research, as well as customer relationship management services. Through its U.S. and Global Network offices, Harris Interactive conducts research around the world, in multiple, localized languages. Harris Interactive uses its proprietary technology to survey its database of more than 7 million online panelists. For more information about Harris Interactive, please visit our website at www.harrisinteractive.com. EOE M/F/D/V

For more information about Harris Interactive or to arrange an interview, contact:

Nancy Wong
Harris Interactive
Phone: [phone]
Cell: [phone]
[e-mail]

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This media release includes statements that may constitute forward-looking information. We caution you that these forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed. Additional detailed information concerning a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ is readily available in the "Risk Factors" section of our Prospectus, dated December 6, 1999 and filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission pursuant to the Securities Act of 1933.