Docphin, a medical news and research service which we once described as a “Bloomberg for doctors,” has been growing quickly since its beta launch in November. Since then, the startup was selected to participate in Rock Health’s incubator and announced its forthcoming iPhone app. This month, the company also hit a major milestone: its nationwide expansion to 10 more academic medical centers, bringing the total to 13. And the company has redesigned its platform with HTML5, partnered with Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) to feature content from MedEdPORTAL, and introduced a number of new features to the service.
For those unfamiliar with the service, Docphin helps physicians organize, bookmark, read and track medical news and research from a variety of sources, all within a single dashboard interface. The resulting product has a very consumer-like feel, especially with features like a Twitter widget for tracking medical societies’ tweets, bookmarking, commenting and social sharing. But the content is all medical-focused.
Initially available at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan and the University of California-San Diego, Docphin has now rolled out to Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Northwestern University, New York University, Stanford University, University of Chicago, University of Washington, and Washington University in St. Louis.
It has also moved to an HTML5 platform and has added features like a “Trending” section that shows what others are reading, sharing and discussing as well as a new “Search” page that lets doctors filter content from Docphin’s news sources and journals and more. For the old-school doctors (or rather, just the busy ones), the company is adding a free, personalized email service with direct links to articles based on their interests. And finally, the Docphin iPhone app is on track for a summer launch.
While in beta, Docphin was open to the public with limited access, but now it will only be available to its partnering institutions with free full-text access to journal articles. Co-founder Mitesh Patel says news of the service has also spread via word-of-mouth, and now its user base is evenly split between doctors, residents, and medical students alike.
As for the burning questions about how the company plans to make money? Patel isn’t ready to reveal all the details yet, but tells us that Docphin will introduce a cloud-based SaaS model for its enterprise product which will launch later this year.