Soon after the launch of Revolution Health, WebMD has announced a host of new online services, including free personal health records, new Community Centers which enable the sharing of information, 60 new health centers, and an expanded video library. The company expects the enhancements to boost both traffic and advertising offerings.

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King Pharmaceuticals will launch a multi-year sponsorship of the AHA's high blood pressure website with a commercial during Super Bowl XLI. The campaign aims to increase public awareness of the condition and its risk factors, with the aim of driving users to an online risk assessment test on BeatYourRisk.com (to be launched early February).

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A company called WiSpots installed its first station, allowing patients to access the Internet wirelessly on touchpad computers as they waited for their physician appointments. When the computers are not being used, the company makes use of the downtime to display paid ads within the screensavers. The major hurdle for the company is that they need to convince doctors to pay for the service. For interactive marketers however, the concept presents an ideal channel directly into the waiting room.

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Revolution Health has launched its Preview Site. Much more than a repository for health information, the site calls itself 'your health homepage', focusing on overall prevention and wellness, and offering highly interactive features such as community support tools, ratings and reviews on doctors and hospitals, and a membership which allows access to a live person to help you with anything from health issues to insurance problems.

A study published by Medefield found that 43% of quantitative pharmaceutical market research was conducted online last year, up from 37% in 2005 and 22% in 2004. For the first time, Internet-based research was the most popular, followed by face-to-face, phone, and other tactics such as direct mail. Reasons cited for using online research were the ability to reach large numbers of physician and consumer audiences segments both quickly and cost effectively.

Acknowledging the role women play as the family health manager, as well as their increasing use of the web as a central support tool, iVillage has launched iVillage Total Health. Leveraging new health resources acquired in the last year (Healthology and HealthCentersOnline), as well as new partnerships (GE Healthcare and NBC Universal), the site is said to now offer one of the largest health video libraries online, as well as expanded health content, news, tools, and community features. It will be interesting to see how iVillage refines its packages for advertisers over time, given its access to expanded venues and platforms, as well as increased reach. It is evident in any case, that this property is gaining dominance in the online healthcare arena.