Healthline Networks Introduces Social Search

New Social Search Mines the Wisdom of Patient Experiences on Medication Use So Consumers Can Learn More About Drugs They Use, Therapy Switching and Drug Comparison

SAN FRANCISCO – DEC. 14, 2011 – Healthline Networks today announced a partnership with First Life Research, the social media search company that developed Treato, to add Social Search to the Healthline Drug Notebook, a suite of drug information applications that includes Drug Search, Drug Interaction Checker, Pill Identifier and more. By clicking on the “Discussion Forums” links throughout the Drug Notebook, consumers can search social media and forum discussions about the medications they take and compare conversations about side effects, therapy switching, interactions with other medications, costs and effectiveness.

Healthline’s Social Search uses the Treato platform, which maps more than a billion posts from forums and blogs around the Web. The new tool covers more than 11,000 drug brands, providing multiple perspectives and insights into drug information that consumers most want to know. Consumers can filter conversations by popular topics, related drugs and interact with graphical summaries to view the most popular topics and drill down into specific threads.

“Health care is inherently social, and technology that builds from social connections, and encourages collaboration and conversation will lead to a better patient experience and improved outcomes,” said West Shell, III, chairman and CEO of Healthline Networks. “Drug information is one of the top treatment topics consumers search for—this new social search we created with the Treato platform will allow consumers to better understand their medications, as well as other choices, side effects and effectiveness straight from current user conversations.”

“The joint offering is the first to help consumers make sense of what patients are saying about their health in social media and to bring the patient’s voice to life,” said Gideon Mantel, CEO of First Life Research, the company that developed Treato.com. “Healthline’s leading brand, extensive network and expertise, combined with the new social search offering, will collectively deliver an unmatched online health experience for consumers.”

The Social Search platform is a new feature on Healthline’s simple-to-use Drug Notebook, which provides detailed information on specific medications including:

• Easy Navigation: Each drug has its own Drug Notebook home page that provides quick information and links to available social data
• Comprehensive Search: A broad list of available data to search, including side effects, interactions, safety alerts, clinical information, commentary from other consumers using the drug and images
• Find Common Drug Names: The top 10 brand and generic names used for the drug will be listed for consumers to easily identify the medications for which they are seeking more information
• Narrow Searches via Topic Filters: Ability to filter by topic area on each specific drug, allowing users to easily narrow their search
• Visual, Graphical Summaries: Illustrations showing the most popular topics associated with the drug, frequency of posts on a specific topic and more
• Sharing Options with Social Media Tools: Links for users to share any Healthline Social Search content

In the future, the insights from Healthline’s Social Search powered by Treato will be expanded and integrated into Healthline’s full suite of search tools and condition-specific learning centers.

About Healthline Networks

Healthline Networks is the fastest growing provider of intelligent health information services, enabling 100 million consumers a month to make more confident, informed healthcare decisions. The company's proprietary consumer healthcare taxonomy, the largest of its kind, powers a suite of comprehensive health search, content and advertising services. Combining advanced search technology with deep medical expertise, Healthline partners with a network more than 50 trusted destination sites that include publishers, portals, search engines, employers and health plans. Headquartered in San Francisco and ranked #54 in Deloitte's 2010 Technology Fast 500, Healthline is backed by Aetna, GE/NBC Peacock Fund, Investor Growth Capital, Kaiser Permanente, Reed Elsevier Ventures, U.S. News & World Report, and VantagePoint Venture Partners. For more information, visit www.healthline.com.

About First Life Research and Treato

Developed by First Life Research, Treato™ is a new source of medical information based on real life experiences of patients. Treato analyzes patient discussions about drugs and medical conditions on blogs and forums, aggregating them into a single, clear and highly accessible knowledge base. Since its launch on September 2011, over a billion patient discussions were already analyzed, generating the aggregated patients' voice for the very first time. FLR received recognition for its novel technology by the Israel US Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation when awarded a grant for its joint project with Healthline Networks, Inc. Treato is available to the public at http://treato.com.