The Jerusalem Post (March 27, 2000)

Did you ever think of compiling a consolidated personal medical record for yourself and members of your family? It sounds easier than it really is.

There may be files in a few hospitals where you were treated in Israel and abroad; records kept by a variety of health fund clinic doctors; your vaccination booklet; eyeglass prescriptions; lists of medications you take; X-rays, CT, and MRI scans performed in imaging institutes; allergies; recent laboratory tests, and family medical histories.

And if you managed to collect all, or even some, of it - the Patients Rights Law requires all medical institutions to give you a copy of your records - where would you store it?

The data would have to be in a safe place, away from unauthorized prying eyes, but also accessible enough for you to show it to a doctor if you needed urgent treatment.

A group of smart Israelis have received seed money from private investors in the US and Canada to develop a depository for such personal information. Intercilium Inc., a new start-up company in Tel Aviv (www.intercilium.com), will this spring begin to offer a free, on-line personal health diary that stores up to 10 megabytes of data for each individual. You need only go to.. (phd stands for personal health diary), which already has an experimental beta site, take a randomly generated user number, choose your own password (which you can change anytime), and enter any data you wish on digital forms.

There are only four categories: forms, calendar, medical history, and emergency. The emergency section can be kept separate for access by medical staffers without giving them permission to see the other three data sections.

In addition, you can automatically print out an emergency access card for a professional or relative you trust that supplies your user number and password.

INTERCILIUM urges users not to enter any identifying information, like name, address, identity card or phone number, zip code, or details about the doctors or medical institutions that have treated you (any stored data on physicians would interest advertisers aimed at a well-educated, upper-middle-class audience).

The site's servers are located in the US, but Intercilium's eight-member staff - who have more than 30 years of combined experience in the development of computer-based medical records - do not look at any of the data. Anyone who forgets his user number and password cannot get into his on-line file, as the company keeps no record of this information.

The user is, however, advised to print data out or download it to a diskette of his own making and keep the information for just such an eventuality. One can, moreover, view banner ads on the site but not click through directly to them; those who want information about a produce or service the ads offer must bookmark their Web site addresses.

Dr. Shmuel Berger, a 44-year-old, Canadian-born physician who founded Intercilium and serves as its chairman and CEO, stresses the advantages of having your records on the Internet.

Many thousands of deaths in the US each year result from medical errors due to lack of accurate medical information about a patient. Uncertainty about whether you have already undergone a specific test, or the loss of test results, cause needless and sometimes painful repeated medical tests.

WITH THE site you can access your personal health diary almost anywhere and take an active role in your health care.

So if you've broken your glasses in a foreign country, for example, you can quickly check your prescription and order a replacement; or if you've lost your medication you can look up the generic name and get a refill. You can also update and review your file if you're at an Internet cafe or staying at a hotel.

But even if you don't leave Israel the Web site lets you add ongoing data to your personal file, filed on a calendar that stretches from decades in the past to decades into the future.

You can quickly search dates of medical tests, treatments, prescriptions, and operations; you can remind yourself to get that mammogram or colonoscopy, that ophthalmology exam or PSA test, and mark down when you began to feel certain symptoms. All this information can be of utmost benefit when you need a doctor's diagnosis.

Berger notes that the listings of disorders and conditions include both scientific and popular names (such as "the runs," meaning diarrhea); and generic names for medications are given along with commercial names (this is especially helpful if you need a prescription abroad).

The site will be available in all major European languages.

BERGER'S innovative company has a number of foreign competitors such as www.personalmd.com; www.wellmed.com; then there are www.medicalrecord.com; www.aboutmyhealth.net/aboutmyhealth/nonmember.htm; www.statchart.com; and finally www.healthcompassnet.com.

None of Intercilium's competitors offers the same absolute data privacy because they require users to give an e-mail address or other identifying information, or insert cookies (bits of code placed on the user's computer that help a site identify him on return visits and track information about his surfing habits).

Users of these foreign sites who think they are anonymous are dispatching information about them by clicking banner advertisements on the site: If you click a Viagra ad, for instance, the likelihood is that you or someone close to you suffers from erectile dysfunction (impotence) and is a potential customer for related treatment.

"Theirs is a 'trust-us' model. Users have to trust that sites holding their personal information won't transfer it to a third party," says Berger, who is licensed to practice medicine in Ontario, New York State and Israel and has won international recognition for his work in the development of computer-based patient records. "The 'trust-us' model has proved itself to be a failure."

A US company called DoubleClick Inc., which collects data through on-line banner ads, has amassed more than 100 million files on visitors to such sites.

Medical Web sites claim they protect the privacy of visitors but they often share the information they collect with other companies, according to a new study reported in The Washington Post.

Pharmaceutical firms, health insurance companies, potential employers, and a large variety of others would give their eye teeth to know who suffers from certain conditions, fits in a specific age or socioeconomic group, and is a potential customer.

But Berger asserts that his company's proprietary software uses patent-pending, proven encryption technologies, developed by Epicad Ltd. of Canada, to safeguard users' privacy, and that it can easily meet the demands of standards for privacy of individually identifiable health information proposed by the US Department of Health and Human Services.

SO HOW does Intercilium make a profit if their users are completely anonymous? Berger explains that when a user fills out any of the dozens of digital "forms" listing conditions and medications taken, the server dispatches banner ads as the user looks at the sites that are related to the types of forms.

For example, someone who registers non-insulin-dependent diabetes on a form could receive a banner ad on the Web page he accesses. Thus Intercilium knows how many people have diabetes, asthma, depression, cancer, or high blood pressure, for example, but it does not and cannot supply advertisers with any identifying information about them.

"If an advertiser wants to reach a limited segment of population aged 23 to 27, for example, who live in a certain location, I can't offer him that," Berger says, "because I can't identify such things. But I can track the number and type of digital forms in use."

Banner ads could appear for consumer goods companies, hi-tech firms, security organizations, the healthcare services industry, professional health associations, charities, or citizens' groups, for example.

The on-line consumer healthcare market is expected to grow to $1.7 billion by 2003, at which time there will be an estimated 500 million Web users worldwide, concludes Berger, who has entered the market while it's still in its infancy and is in a very good opening position indeed.

Intercilium Inc. Completes First-Round Financing, Including Investment from Stechler & Company (February 1, 2000)

For Immediate Release For more information contact Dr. Shmuel Berger, Chairman & CEO Tel: 03-510-9824 Email: info@intercilium.com
Tel Aviv, Israel -- Intercilium Inc. -- an innovative developer of Internet-based privacy-protection systems, which use a patent-pending model -- today announced it has completed its initial round of capitalization. First-round financing includes the recent investment by Stechler & Company, Inc., a U.S. investment and venture capital firm. "Intercilium has solved the problem of how to ensure Internet users' online privacy. Our patent-pending model for privacy on the Internet comes at a time when Web users are deeply concerned about online invasions of privacy, and the misuse of their personal data," said Dr. Shmuel Berger, Intercilium's Chairman and CEO. Intercilium Inc., a high-tech start-up established in Israel and incorporated in Delaware, U.S.A., is now entering its next round of financing. It will launch PHDtoGo, a Personal Health Diary on the Web that protects the privacy of its users, in Spring 2000. The first round of financing also included corporate investments from Wade Capital Corporation, Vancouver (Brooke N. Wade, Chairman and CEO); West Group Resources Inc., Toronto, (Nathan Jacobson, President), and Eldad Levy, Chairman of Gibor Sabrina, Ltd., Kfar Saba. "Intercilium's flagship product, PHDtoGo, meets the requirements of the proposed health privacy rules (Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information) that the Clinton administration is introducing," Dr. Berger added. "Our unique and proprietary approach also stands up to the U.S. 'Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998', due to go into effect on April 21, 2000." Dr. Berger is an internationally recognized authority on the privacy, confidentiality and security of electronic health information. He is also an expert in the design and structure of computer-based health records. He leads a team with over 30 years of combined experience and expertise in the development of computer-based medical records. Intercilium Inc., established in 1999, is working in association with international experts in the fields of data security, medical ethics, application development, and marketing. Its legal team in Israel is headed by Zeev Pearl, of Eitan, Pearl, Latzer & Cohen-Zedek. PHDtoGo will be available for general release in the near future. contact us - privacy policy © 1999-2007 Intercilium Inc. All rights reserved. Intercilium, PHDtoGo and ThePHD are trademarks of Intercilium Inc. Designated trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.