RSMeans Expands Online Tool Offerings

Construction cost information provider RSMeans has launched an online square foot estimator tool on its MeansCostWorks.com site. The new tool enables users to create square foot building cost estimates in just minutes. (RSMeans is a unit of Reed Construction Data).

The square foot estimate provides online access to RSMeans' library of commercial building models and systems. Users can select from 75 commercial building models and specify building type, area, perimeter, number of stories, story height, framing and exterior walls. They can also use Means data for cost escalation, architect fees and contractor overhead, as well as input their own percentages.

The square foot estimator joins another RSMeans online tool, construction cost estimator. Both tools allow users to choose union or open shop labor rates and factor their estimates to more than 900 locations in the U.S. and Canada.

The estimates can be printed out, exported to Excel, shared online or saved for future collaboration or archiving.

This is certainly a smart move by RSMeans for several reasons. First of all, by adding more features to the MeansCostWorks.com site, the company will undoubtedly increase traffic and usage on the site. Plus, this new tool serves as a perfect compliment for the construction cost estimator that users have already been able to access. As a result, users can accomplish more goals on the MeansCostWorks.com site than ever before; making MeansCostWorks.com an even more valuable platform for users.

If the folks at RSMeans haven't already, they should certainly be working on adding even more new tools to the site going forward, taking care to address all of the needs of their construction industry users. It will be a satisfying victory for RSMeans in the future if the company can provide all of the tools these construction professionals need to accomplish their goals. At that point, MeansCostWorks.com could become their only source for cost information.

I was intrigued to read about the launch of the Alacra Content Marketplace, which represents, I believe, the first information reseller to go fully self-service. Publishers (Alacra is actively soliciting participation from data publishers) upload their data, specify their pricing, and Alacra immediately begins offering their content both to its own customer base, as well as on the public Alacra Store site, which allows anyone to purchase content by the slice.

Gone (mercifully) are the days of going to information distributors such as Dialog on bent knee, hoping they would return your call, and having commission terms dictated to you. Because these big distributors couldn't justify the expense of mounting anything but the biggest databases, many small publishers were frozen out. The Web has certainly leveled the playing field for smaller publishers, and specialty online aggregators like Alacra have the potential to deliver meaningful incremental revenue to publishers with their broader reach and a la carte business model.

Labels: aggregation, alacra, alacra store, dialog

Legislators Pull Rank on Ratings

The New York State legislature is considering legislation that would require health insurance companies that rate doctors to do so primarily based on the quality of patient care they provide, rather than on how cost-efficient they might be.

This issue, which has been tagged with the emotionally-tinged label of "physician profiling," seeks to create some consumer- friendly ground rules around the growing interest by health insurance companies in providing physicians ratings and rankings. The fear of both consumers and physicians is that the insurers will give high ratings to doctors who see the most patients, write the fewest prescriptions and make the fewest referrals -- all good things in the eyes of an insurance company, but not necessarily good things for doctors and their patients.

Creating a credible and fair system for rating and comparing physicians is an area of huge opportunity, but as this legislation shows, it's also a minefield. The recent move by Zagat's into physician ratings is a gutsy one, but if they get it right, it will be worth all the pain. We're monitoring this issue, and expect it to be on the agenda for our next Health Content conference, October 27, 2008. Save the date!

Labels: health content 08, physician profiling, physician ratings, zagat

Zagat Rated Physicians

Zagat Survey, publisher of the eponymous restaurant guides, has just announced a partnership with WellPoint, the nation's largest health benefit company, to produce -- yes you guessed it -- a Zagat guide to physicians.

You won't find this new guide in bookstores. The database will only be available online, and listings will be limited to those physicians allied with the Blue Cross subsidiaries owned by Wellpoint. That's not exactly as limiting as it seems: Wellpoint companies collectively insure nearly one in nine Americans, with a meaningful percentage of all physicians participating in its plans. The purpose of this new collaboration is simple: to provide more information to members of Wellpoint insurance plans so that they can make more informed decisions when they need to select their physicians.

You know the current drill. When you join a new health plan, you are presented with a print or online directory. It provides names, addresses and not much else on thousands of physicians. Which one do you choose? Overwhelmed and under-informed, most patients choose a doctor who is nearby, hardly a rigorous selection process.

Very few doctors who participate in health plans do anything to market themselves, so there's long been a dearth of information, particularly comparable information. For years, information entrepreneurs have seen this as an area ripe with opportunity, but have been stymied by one major obstacle: while everyone seems to want this information, nobody wants to pay for it.

Wellpoint may finally be cracking this conundrum by giving its members the ability to exchange information among themselves in an organized manner. It's an ambitious user-generated content initiative, with the Zagat brand adding buzz and panache to what otherwise might be a humdrum undertaking. Further, Wellpoint and Zagat are cleverly focusing on the kind of information that patients want most: not mind numbing medical outcomes statistics, but ratings around trust, communication, availability and cost, all driven by the highly successful Zagat survey methodology.

This is clearly a gutsy brand extension for Zagat, which is moving outside its comfort zone into an area that's complex, emotionally-charged and political. Partnering with Wellpoint gives it immediate market credibility and access, along with some protective cover as it rolls out a database that is sure to draw criticism for being too fluffy, biased, incomplete and unfair. But if Zagat can get past this kind of criticism -- which has beset everyone else who has tried to play in this area -- it will be standing at the doorway of an enormous opportunity. And of course there would be delicious irony in having a restaurant guide providing the remedy for one of our national healthcare system's greatest afflictions.

Labels: physician ratings, wellpoint, zagat

IHS, SAP Launch Joint Venture

Technical information provider IHS Inc. and business software giant SAP have launched a joint offering for Master Data Management of Maintenance, Repair and Operations (MRO) materials data. IHS already serves this niche with its Intermat offering that provides content and services that create standardized and enriched descriptions for industrial MRO items (such as pipes, valves and bearings).

As a result of the joint venture, the item descriptions and Standard Modifier Dictionary (SMD) description formats can seamlessly populate the SAP NetWeaver Master Data Management platform. As part of the solution, IHS will leverage its SMD "Powered by NetWeaver" content certification.

Both companies expect this alliance will help customers better manage their MRO inventory. Because of the companies' international presence, companies around the globe will benefit from the venture. And both organizations will certainly benefit from the strengths of each other. It won't be surprising if IHS and SAP find other areas in which to collaborate.