For Device Firms, Connecting to Physicians Via the Internet

Much of the current Internet talk in the medical device industry focuses on the broad revamping of the supply chain promised by business-to-business e-commerce companies such as Neoforma.com, medibuy.com and Broadlane Inc. And certainly, as they reshape the way hospitals order and purchase products, these B2Bs will affect the way device companies sell their products. But to influence what hospitals buy, suppliers would have to connect directly with the physicians that decide what products to use in a given procedure. Now, MD Data Direct Inc. hopes to bridge that gap by, it claims, delivering "real-time medical product usage information that can be linked to e-commerce services."