Our goal is to provide you with a comprehensive, highly informative and useful resource for understanding, preventing, and seeking appropriate treatment for back and neck pain and related conditions.
This site has been developed by a multi-specialty group of medical professionals. It will be continually enhanced with new features, and we will base its direction and future developments primarily on your feedback (please see contact us) to send in your suggestions.
What is unique about Spine-health.com?Who are the people behind Spine-health.com?
What is the purpose of the site?
What is the quality of the content?
What is the business model?
What is unique about Spine-health.com?
While there are many e-health sites, Spine-health.com is the only spine medicine portal that supports the education of patients through a combination of:100% original, peer-reviewed content.
Spine-health.com was developed by a multi-specialty group of medical professionals, the content is original, written specifically for Spine-health.com users and reviewed by at least one member of the Medical Advisory Board before being added to the site. The peer-reviewed process helps ensure that the articles are accurate, complete, balanced and free from commercial influence.Comprehensive information and services.
Spine-health.com provides in-depth coverage of the most common issues that patients ask about and is frequently updated with new and useful information, clear animations of spine anatomy, conditions and procedures, a directory of board certified/board eligible spine specialists, clinical trial information and more.Independence.
Spine-health.co educates patients in a straightforward, informative manner without bias. Unlike other spine portals, Spine-health.com is not owned or directed by companies that sell spine products or medication. None of the articles are written or influenced by companies trying to sell something. All advertisements and sponsorships are clearly identified and labeled.
Who are the people behind spine-health.com?
The CEO is Mark Achler. Mark is a serial entrepreneur and investor who has built, sold and invested in several companies. He was most recently the CEO of Emmi Solutions www.emmisolutions.com, and prior to that was a Managing Partner at a technology Venture Capital Fund called Kettle Partners. He was recently appointed as the first Entrepreneur in Residence for the State of Illinois and is a frequent speaker and resource for the Chicago high tech community. Mark can be reached at: machler at spine-health.com.The Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing is Sylvia Marten. Sylvia heads up the sales and marketing of the company. In her role, Sylvia leverages over 13 years of experience in sales and marketing, business development, and strategic consulting to create successful experiences between Spine-health's unique pain consumers/patients and physicians - and the companies that wish to market to them. Sylvia can be reached at smarten at spine-health.com.
Spine-health.com was started in August 1999 by Peter F. Ullrich, Jr., MD and Stephanie Burke, sburke at spine-health.com, with a shared goal of providing intelligent, unbiased and highly relevant medical information and community support for people dealing with a wide range of pain conditions and related issues, such as back pain, arthritis, fibromyalgia, depression, Osteoporosis, sleep disorders, exercise, diet and more. Doctor Ullrich serves as the Medical Director, providing medical leadership, and Stephanie Burke, is President. They are both managing directors of the company.
In addition to our dedicated team of web design professionals, editors and operations/administrative staff, we are also honored to be associated with some of the most prominent leaders in spine medicine who comprise our Medical Advisory Board who are our Authors for the site, and whom have joined our Physician Membership.
What is the purpose of the site?
Our business model is simple: we believe that high quality and reliable content and services will attract users seeking information about back pain, and that a high number of users will, in turn, attract sponsorships from corporations, advertisements, and subscriptions from spine specialists.Importantly, we believe that providing the highest quality patient education on the Internet helps spine specialists serve their patients; we believe that a well-educated patient will heal faster and have fewer recurrences of back pain, and we believe that all of this can be achieved without commercial bias.
What is the quality of the content?
The medical content on this site has been reviewed by health professionals. Our approach requires the authors to base their writing on verifiable facts and to clearly note when stating an opinion or topic that is controversial. (See also Editorial Process). At least one member of our Medical Advisory Board reviews every article prior to publication on the site, and many areas of the site as reviewed by 5 or 6 Medical Advisors.What is the business model?
Spine-health.com is built around the foundation of providing clear, non-commercial patient education. We don't charge patients to use this site. Doctors support this site by subscribing (for an annual fee) to provide patient education to their patients and for a web page in our directory; commercial companies advertise and/or list their clinical trials on our site for a fee; and we have teamed up with Google.com to participate in Google's AdSense program (whereby Google's advertisers can advertise on some pages of our site).E-mail us to learn more about highly targeted and cost effective advertising on Spine-health.com.
Spine-health.com complies with the principles of the HON Code of Conduct established by the Health on the Net Foundation. Click here to verify our compliance. Health On the Net Foundation
