(2009-05-02) Newsweek Parkinson

News Week profiles Jay Parkinson. Most of the article is about his practice, and everyone's hatred of Health Insurance companies. Massachusetts recently passed a universal health-care program, but it's facing a tremendous shortage of doctors. Only 10 percent of primary-care doctors there are accepting new patients, and the average waiting period to see a primary-care physician exceeds 30 days.

His partner company MyCa will get 7 percent of the revenue generated from the visits the doctors schedule online. The platform will also offer a social-networking function for doctors that will enable collaboration beyond just friending. Like doctor-focused Social Networking sites Sermo and MedScape Physician Connect, doctors will be able to consult to each other by posting images of, say, a skin disorder and ask rosacea experts if they agree with that diagnosis. They'll also use text messaging to collect important ongoing data from patients--diabetes patients, for example, will get texts three times a day asking for their blood-sugar levels. That data is collected on their personal pages, and can be referenced later by any member of their team. Groups will be created so that patients dealing with similar diagnoses can communicate with each other, and doctors can send them new studies and information immediately.