RequestHealth Corporation today announced its formation as an Internet healthcare company, concentrating on the development and operation of a private network of medical Web sites that will focus on improving every aspect of the doctor-patient relationship. These highly configurable Web sites will create a digital medical practice that complements the traditional physician's office, while tying together interdependent care providers, patients, insurers, and suppliers into a seamless, shared digital relationship.
With RequestHealth, doctors receive a high-end, interactive and distinctive Web site at no cost. This is particularly invaluable when considering today's economic reality for most medical practices. Through private Digital Housecall(sm) accounts, RequestHealth facilitates convenient and affordable communications between doctors and their patients. By becoming a member of their doctor's Web site, patients can confidentially schedule appointments, view test results, access available medical information, and ask questions before an office visit. Because the accounts are private and secure, patients may only access their accounts at their doctor's Web site.
"Up until now, doctors have had to invest in costly, proprietary management systems or settle for a process they cobbled together with people, faxes, and phones, which often resulted in the patient being used as a courier," stated president and CEO Derrick Hollings. With the RequestHealth Internet-based medical care network, doctors participate at no cost while relieving their office staff of many routine tasks. "In addition, we can provide independent doctors in the community with a better infrastructure than most of the large institution-owned provider networks," concluded Hollings.
RequestHealth founders include Derrick O. Hollings, president and chief executive officer, J. Bradford Kain, executive vice president of development, and Jean Pierre LeJacq, executive vice president and chief technology officer. Before founding RequestHealth, Hollings served as the chief financial officer of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. Kain and LeJacq were co-founders of Cambridge, Mass.-based Quoin Inc, a distributed computing consulting firm involved in a variety of areas in addition to healthcare. Quoin is now a wholly owned subsidiary of RequestHealth and serves as its technology center for developing the RequestHealth network of sites.
"Quoin has many years of experience building large Internet based systems," said LeJacq. "Through RequestHealth's acquisition of Quoin, we bring cutting edge technology and our development expertise to the healthcare market. For example, we provide support for visually and physically impaired users of our Web sites through adherence to Level AAA of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, which, surprisingly, is somewhat unusual in other healthcare related Web sites."
