A Chat with Healthline’s CEO West Shell III
This week ASE welcomes Healthline Chairman and CEO West Shell III.
In April 2005, West joined the Board of Directors and assumed the role of chairman and CEO of Healthline. Prior to joining Healthline, West served as CEO and president of Sapias, a leading provider of mobile workforce management solutions for large enterprise customers such as Time Warner, ServiceMaster, and Hudson News. From 1997 to 2001, as chairman and CEO of Netcentives, West created one of the most powerful e-marketing companies, managing over 50 million consumer relationships on behalf of more than 200 blue chip customers in 10 countries. Within three years the company was generating over $70 million in revenues. West successfully led an IPO and, during his tenure, raised more than $150 million in private and public funds from leading investors to a $3 billion market capitalization.
West earlier co-founded and served as managing partner of Pacific Marketing Group, one of the largest independent marketing agencies on the West coast, which he sold to D’arcy, Masius, Benton and Bowles. West has also held various product management and marketing positions at Atari, Coopervision, Grey Advertising (P&G) and Johnson & Johnson. He currently also serves on the boards of California Trout and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. He is happily married with four children and is an avid kayaker, skier and fly fisherman.
ASE: Please tell us about Healthline. What’s the coolest feature- how can it help people who are seeking medical info without having to leave their home?
West: Healthline’s mission is to empower consumers to make better health decisions. The company has created a powerful, Medically Guided Search technology that powers a unique suite of intelligent health search, navigation and content services. Today Healthline reaches more than 18 million consumers a month through our consumer facing website, Healthline.com (www.healthline.com) and our partner network, which now consists of more than 30 health portals, publishers, employee and provider health sites.
Recently Healthline developed a unique clinical application, Healthline Drug Search to help consumers manage their medications more effectively, discover possible interactions, and research alternatives. This, like our Healthline Symptom Search; before it, is an innovative tool that provides users with a decision support platform for health, not just aggregated content.
The coolest feature within Healthline Drug Search is undoubtedly the pill finder”, which was created by one of Healthline’s on-staff pharmacists. She told us when she used to work at a pharmacy, it was not uncommon for customers to come to her with a handful of pills and ask her to identify them. As a result, I liken Healthline Pill Finder to the pharmacy window, where users can describe their pill, by shape, color, identifiable markings, and Healthline will tell you what it is. Our users love it.
ASE: You have a background in marketing. Please talk about the challenges of marketing a health/medical search engine. Surely there are more legal issues when people are searching for medical info.
West: Legal issues as it relates to delivering health information are, thankfully, not very complex thanks to disclaimers that we put on the site. So that is not one of our challenges. The important thing about all businesses in healthcare is that they have to earn the trust of the consumer. Healthline doesn’t rely on a traditional search engine – like Google or Yahoo, that ranks results according to an algorithm based on link popularity. Rather, our Medically Guided Search technology was created by doctors and, as a result, delivers clinically relevant search results. Healthline’s superior search results have earned the trust of healthcare consumers and our partners and, as a result, we are experiencing phenomenal growth.
Healthline’s medical domain expertise is our competitive advantage, and why more than 30 world-class brands – including AARP, Ask, Ingenix, iVillage, Regence, Rodale and StayWell — have signed up with us to power their consumer facing health information. But working with such a diverse set of partners is definitely a balancing act.
The reward – that Healthline is now delivering quality health information to more than 18 million consumers a month, helping them to make better decisions – is worth the effort. It’s why Healthline is growing so fast and why Healthline has replaced Google and Yahoo for health searches on major consumer sites such as AOL Body and iVillage Your Total Health.
ASE: Was there a steep learning curve for you (with regard to the medical information you had to familiarize yourself with) when you took over at Healthline?
West: Over the last 30 years of my career, I have worked in consumer marketing, healthcare, and Internet technology, so I would say that this opportunity at Healthline is the “perfect storm” for my experience, interest and abilities.
ASE: Describe a typical day in your life (what I’m trying to get at here is how challenging it is to be a CEO). How many emails a day do you get, is there a lot of travel, is there time for leisure activity?
West: Every day as the CEO of a fast-growing company in a rapidly evolving industry is exciting! Technology is transforming the way consumers find health information and manage their healthcare, and I consider myself extremely fortunate to be a part of it, and make a contribution. A typical day in my life, when I am in our San Francisco headquarters, is spent working with our tremendous executive staff, holding strategic discussions about the growth and development of the company, and overseeing the day-to-day operations of our office and employees (now numbering more than 100). I also travel about 1/3 of the time, to meet and engage various stakeholders, whether that’s investors, press, analysts, partners, prospects, board members, or medical advisers.
With all that is going on in the health technology sector these days, I spend much of my time moving the company vision forward, and then figuring out how we will execute on that vision and scale to meet our growing demand. I would say that I get about 100 emails a day. As for leisure activity…well, as the father to four children most of my leisure time these days is spent with my family.
ASE: How is searching with Healthline different than other search engines that provide medical info (WebMD, etc.). What might one find that would please and surprise?
West: First of all, WebMD is not a search engine. They use Yahoo general keyword search. That is a key differentiator between Healthline and the other health information portals – our technology. Healthline’s Medically Guided Search technology is driven by a semantic health taxonomy that understands all the relationships associated with a single health term or phrase. As a result, Healthline provides a user with 360 degree decision support, meaning that when a user searches on health term, we are able to provide that user with a richer, more dynamic set of search results.
I think what’s exciting about Healthline is that we take the search out of the search box. When a user searches on Asthma, for example, they are not simply getting a list of blue links leading you off to a website that may or may not be credible. On Healthline.com, a user will not only get basic information about Asthma from leading medical publishers, but they will also be able to click on an Asthma HealthMap, a visual representation of medical associations of Asthma – symptoms, causes, diagnosis, treatments, complications, prevention. Or view a list of asthma symptoms, or take a test about risk factors for asthma. All of this is the result of one single search on Healthline.com.
ASE: What are some of the most popular searches?
West: Healthline’s most popular searches are directly related to incidence in our population and our demographic, such as Alzheimer’s disease, asthma, depression, diabetes, flu, pregnancy, etc. But it’s also not uncommon to see more complex searches on Healthline.com, as the site is also an authority on lesser-known conditions like neurofibromatosis, phenylketonuria, or klinefelter syndrome.
ASE: How much marketing do you do / what’s your target demographic?
West: Healthline is building a reputation as the leading provider of intelligent health information. Search results are branded throughout our growing partner network, now reaching more than 18 million consumers a month.
ASE: On the personal side… Where are you from?
West: I grew up in Westport, Connecticut and went to the University of Vermont and majored in skiing. 
I presently live in Marin County, California, with my wife and 18 month old twins. I also have two children in college. I am an avid outdoorsman. I ski more than 40 days a year, enjoy adventure kayaking around the world, and fly fishing.
ASE: Who inspires you in the business sector? Personally? Why?
West: Steve Jobs is the most innovative, visionary CEO of my lifetime. His ability to use (more innovative) technology to successfully change a large, competitive market is what I would like to do with healthcare. My personal inspiration is my friend Scott Lindgren, the undisputed king of expedition kayaking. I am inspired by all he has achieved, by navigating some of the wildest and most remote rivers on the planet.
ASE: Whom are you rooting for in this election?
West: I am proudly rooting for Barack Obama, one of the most inspirational speakers and charismatic leaders I have ever seen. He is exactly the tonic this country needs to pull us together and repair our internal fractures and our standing in the international community.
ASE: Where do you think medical/health search will be in one year?
West: I believe that technology will continue to transform consumer healthcare and we will see larger consumer demand for platforms that move beyond the simple delivery of aggregated health content – toward more personalized decision support platforms. The entrance of big players like Google, Microsoft and Revolution will facilitate wide scale adoptions of consumer-health applications like the PHR, and platforms like Healthline will be used to connect those consumers to all the health information – living out there now in disparate, legacy systems — in a more intelligent and meaningful way.
ASE: Thanks, West. All the best to you and Healthline!
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