In 1982 pharmaceutical giant Merck, Sharp & Dohme explored the possibility of providing information about drugs via simple interactive terminals that would provide immediate information access at the doctor's desk and in the waiting room.

Challenges

International consulting agency Communications Studies and Planning, Ltd flew me to London, UK, to model a medical support service that could provide physicians and their patients with pharmaceutical and therapeutic information. We needed to design a structure that could service each of the three target audiences: Physicians, Patients & Public and Merck representatives.

Solutions

The site we designed gave physicians direct access to Merck representatives for product support and other services. It included:

• Bulletin Board
• E-mail
• Generic Medical Information Retrieval
• Cross-Referenced Pharmeceutical Directory
• Product Information Catalog
• Clinical Trial info
• Sales Support
• Online Help and Tutorials
• Mailbox, bulletin board, Inquiry/Response module

(Right: storyboard sketches of site structure and behavior)

Wireframes, DemoSite

The idea was to place terminals in physician waiting rooms and on the doctor's desktop. This would allow the public to have access to self-help information and at the same time would build a stronger direct marketing relationship with the medical community.

Professional Self-service, Information Retrieval, Prestel mosaic format and Aregon database software, delivered on dedicated terminals, info retrieval database structure