October 2000 Issue

In This Issue

• Echiropractic Service Set to Open
• AOL New Version to Support HTML Email
• Medical Patients Want More Information On Web
• Get The Big Idea Seminars Take Off
• ICA Adopts Internet Guidelines

Echiropractic Service Set to Open

Our new service, will open in just a few short days! You can find it on the web site www.echiropractic.net. It features unlimited online chiropractic pamphlets and letters written by Dr. Fred Barge, myself, and three pamphlets on vaccinations written by Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center . For a minimal yearly subscription, you will be able to send unlimited personalized chiropractic pamphlets via the Internet to all your patients and friends with Internet access. 

What exactly is Echiropractic?  Have you seen services such as "BlueMountain.com" or "Greetings.com"? These services allow you to send Email personalized greeting cards to friends or relatives.  Well imagine if you had a service that did the same thing with chiropractic pamphlets and letters you use in your practice?  That is basically what Echiropractic is!  

Starting November 2000  you will be able to log on and subscribe for one year for only $179.95.  To get an idea of what this service looks like please visit our new site at www.echiropractic.net . If you would like to try a free sample, please go to our web site at www.echiropractic.net, and click on "Click here to send a sample Echiropractic message" from our home page.  Then  just follow some simple instructions and, WOW, see how it works! 

Imagine the ability to send personalized unlimited email pamphlets and cards, on chiropractic, to your patients and prospective patients for one full year!  The subscription for this service starting November 2000 will be $179.95.  This fee is a no-brainer when you consider the savings on printed pamphlets you purchase in a year.  

AOL Version 6.0 to Support HTML Email

Finally!  In conversations with customer service, Now You Know was informed that AOL is planning to upgrade their email service to support html email.  What this means to the average user is that now they will be able to get email in color with pictures, without having to open pictures separately as an attachment.  If you are on AOL now you are reading this email as text only.  When version 6.0 comes out you will see these Information Age emails in color with pictures!

For the Now You Know email subscribers who are either on AOL, or whose patients are on AOL, this means that the Email Newsletter we send out to your patients every month from Now You Know will finally come in full color with pictures the way the rest of the online world has been seeing them.  We recommend that everyone on AOL upgrade to the new version as soon as it becomes available.

Medical Patients Want More Information On Web

From the October 18, 2000 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) comes an interesting article of a survey of 1006 gastroenterology outpatients in Durham, NC, and Rockford, Ill.  This survey was designed, "To determine gastroenterology patients access to and use of the Web as a medical information resource, to identify for what information patients search, and to determine how often physicians recommend that patients search the Web." 

The results showed, that out of a total of 924 patients who completed the questionnaire, 50% reported having access to the Internet. Of the 462 with access, 235 (51%) had searched the Web for medical information within the previous year. Therefore, 25.5% of all patients surveyed had searched the Web for medical information within the previous 12 months. What was really an indicator of trends was that 60% of the patients in the study indicated that they intended to use the Web as a medical information resource in the future.  However, only 35 patients in the study, or 4% of 825 had ever been referred to the Web by a physician.

Side Note: In my personal practice I regularly use the Internet.  I refer my patients to my web site daily, as well as in my health talks each week.  My written "Report of Finding" sheet even has references to information I want my new patients to see with the addresses and links I want them to further look up.  When a new patient calls my office my staff asks if they have Internet access, and when they say yes they are instructed to visit my site, read the page on the first visit, and download and fill out the forms they will need right off my web site.  They walk into my office with their paperwork already filled out!  Doctors, this is our future, we need to get with it!

"Get The Big Idea" Seminars Take Off!

Response was great to the first seminar given by Dr. Robert Schiffman.  Dr. Schiffman presently has the largest solo practice in North America regularly seeing between 1700 and 2600 patient visit per week.  Last month he started his first one day program to share with other DCs the  secrets that have brought him to the levels he has achieved. 

With only one email announcement, Dr Schiffmans "Get The Big Idea" program drew chiropractors from Spain, the Netherlands and all over the USA. The response from the participants was enthusiastic as most saw this one day program as a life changing experience.  

The next Get The Big Idea program is now scheduled for Saturday, December 2nd, 2000, at the Indianapolis Airport Holiday Inn.  For information or to register please visit their web site at www.getthebigidea.com. 

ICA Adopts Internet Guidelines

The International Chiropractors Associations has become the first chiropractic organization to adopt a set of guidelines for Internet usage by its members in a practice setting.  The guidelines entitled, "Ethical Guidelines for Internet Usage in a Chiropractic Health Care Setting" were adopted by the ICA Board at a recent meeting.

The guidelines were established to add a direction for proper usage of the Internet in a chiropractic setting.  As this communications technology continues to grow, such guidelines will become more valuable.  Numerous Internet organizations and societies have already adopted guidelines for usage by businesses.  The AMA also recently adopted a set of guidelines for the medical profession.

The ICA Internet Guidelines mark the first set of such guidelines specifically earmarked for a chiropractic practice.  These guidelines can be seen at the following link: http://www.chiropracticguidelines.org/ICA_internetguidelines.htm

Please forward this newsletter onto a chiropractic colleague.  IF you feel you have received this newsletter in error please reply with the word "Remove" in the subject line.