Microsoft announced yesterday that it will partner with General Electric to form a new company aimed at improving the accessibility of healthcare information. The two hope to optimize the treatment that healthcare providers can offer patients while minimizing the cost …

Social media has helped to fill a void across various industries. It has brought a human element to many companies and provided opportunities that probably would not have happened through conventional channels.

Among Internet users looking for health information, product/health websites are as important as health care provider interaction, according to a new study from Epsilon.

Forty percent of online consumers use social media for health information (reading or posting content).

Pharmaceutical company Pfizer said today it is launching a Web site aimed at educating healthcare professionals, patients and the public about medicine safety.

"We want to increase understanding of the industry’s system for ensuring medicine safety," said Dr. Joseph M. Feczko, chief medical officer for Pfizer.

The newly launched HealthSTAT network seeks a piece of the growing online advertising market for healthcare interests online.

The launch of Healia Communities adds to a growing mix of sites all aimed at providing a common ground for people, ailments, and the ability to connect with others online.

Insurer Aetna tapped Healthline to provide a platform for Aetna’s customers to find answers to questions about coverage, physicians, and medications.

The Center for Medicine in the Public Interest (CMPI) has concerns about searching the Internet for health-related information, but we have concerns about CMPI.

First thing’s first: I’m suspicious of the pharmaceutical industry in general. A lot of people are, but as a journalist, suspicion is part of the job. Also, I have the researcher’s tendency toward cyberchondriasis, so take my non-medical expertise for what it’s worth.

Which isn’t much. I put that out there so others won’t have to.

Google’s former health project leader will provide the closing keynote address for the World Healthcare Innovation and Technology conference.

The publishers behind the venerable Physicians’ Desk Reference opened a new site for consumers based on the same information platform as the book.

Thailand’s Bumrungrad International Hospital formed an alliance with Microsoft, where the technology company will acquire all the goodies owned under the Hospital’s Global Care Solutions firm.

One of the biggest names in technology wants people to trust it with health information; we have to wonder if HealthVault from Microsoft is arriving on time, or a little too soon for people.

Going online for health information is popular. Seventy-eight percent of Americans look to the Internet to find health information, according to a Burst Media study.

Health-related information from Healthline populates the Smart Answers field in Ask’s search results as an enhancement to the search engine’s ability to handle health queries.

When it comes to organizing all the world’s information and making it useful, Google’s mission may extend all the way to one’s DNA.

Healthcare as an informational topic continues to intrigue Google, which has gathered a group of healthcare experts to help the search advertising company understand health issues better.

Recently, I sat on a panel for PRSA Healthcare on social media. I brought along the PR blogger perspective, and sat on it with the VP at Technorati and Amy Tenderich, from Diabetes Mine.

Healthcare is different from other practices in PR. You have the whole direct-to-consumer guidelines from the FDA, and then you have a ton of other issues in dealing with the press and social media.

When searching for health information online, it’s hard to know what sites are trustworthy. Google has a system for marking authoritative results, but by the company’s own admission most users are unaware of how to interpret the indicators. So how can the experience of searching for health-related information be improved?

Seeking no doubt to improve upon its dismal figures in the search market, Microsoft revealed plans today to acquire Medstory, a company that develops search technology for those operating specifically within the healthcare sector.

Was just sent a pointer to a solid article from the Wall Street Journal, “Social Networking Comes To Healthcare.”

What is MBD? Why is it in Google’s robots.txt file? Who reads Google’s robots.txt file enough to notice this? Where can you find the answer?