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Free Site Offering Patient-Physician Dialog Reaches Milestone

Posted on: Wednesday, 31 October 2007, 09:00 CDT

NORTHAMPTON, Mass., Oct. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Physicians and other healthcare providers have been contributing posts to Healthcommunities.com, Inc.'s healthchannels forum (http://www.healthcommunities.com/health/forums.shtml) since last August. Recently, the one-thousandth physician post was submitted to the forum.

The healthchannels forum is hosted and maintained by Healthcommunities.com, Inc. (HC), a privately held company that publishes original, unbiased, and physician-developed and -monitored patient education websites, including urologychannel.com, oncologychannel.com, and womenshealthchannel.com, et. al.

"The forum is notable for the variety of specific, active topics, as well as the physician involvement," says Stanley J. Swierzewski III, M.D., CEO and Founder of Healthcommunities. "There are almost 400 active topics covering everything from acne to vertigo. One forum section growing in popularity is 'Undiagnosed Conditions.' Although not every forum post receives a physician response, browsers with similar medical situations benefit from sharing experiences with each other and can use the information to assist their healthcare provider or medical team. Patients who are fully engaged in the healthcare decision-making process can improve the quality of their care."

The healthchannels forum was originally designed as a peer-to-peer area for browsers to interact and share symptoms and treatment information. However, Dr. Swierzewski, a board-certified urologist, began contributing to the browser dialog and other physicians and healthcare providers soon followed suit. Physicians in the forum do not provide diagnostic or treatment information, but share experiences about medical conditions from a physician's point of view.

Participating physicians are screened and identified as "Healthcommunities.com Approved Physicians." They also help develop and monitor the clinical condition information on the patient education websites. In return for their assistance, they receive recognition on the patient education websites.

The unique format of the healthchannels forum is a benefit to browsers, as the following submission illustrates:

"Finding this forum has been fantastic - I only feel sad that so many people struggle not only with pain but with the difficulty of getting questions answered by their own doctors. After a couple of hours reading here I am much better informed. Thank you to the doctor and to those who respond and also to everyone for asking all my questions for me."

-- Birdsong, September 2007

Healthcommunities.com, Inc., which publishes 28 health-related websites (http://www.healthcommunities.com/health/) providing relevant, reliable condition and treatment information to health consumers, will celebrate its 10-year anniversary in 2008.

Healthcommunities.com, Inc., (http://www.healthcommunities.com/) a privately held company founded in 1998, serves healthcare consumers searching for reliable information. Healthcommunities.com is a Physician Developed and Monitored(TM) collection of online communities providing information and resources to consumers and patient education website services to healthcare providers.

Contact: Thomas Lund Healthcommunities.com, Inc. Telephone: 888.950.0808, ext. 101 Fax: 413.587.0387 tlund@healthcommunities.com http://www.healthcommunities.com/

This release was issued through eReleases(TM). For more information, visit http://www.ereleases.com/.

Healthcommunities.com, Inc.

CONTACT: Thomas Lund of Healthcommunities.com, Inc., +1-888-950-0808,ext. 101, Fax - +1-413-587-0387, tlund@healthcommunities.com

Web site: http://www.healthcommunities.com/

Source: PRNewswire

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