Hey Salu, where are you?

In rifling through my paper files (hey, I’m a journalist, not a doctor, and I don’t type quickly enough to take my notes on the computer), I came across a company called Salu, a physician specialty hub from early this decade. The company, at one point headed by Jim Steeb, hosted sites called Dermdex for dermatologists and plastic surgeons, and NeuroHub for neurologists.

I have a report that said in January 2002, the company built research panels from among the various sites’ membership to study physician attitudes. My undated notes from a phone interview with Steeb said that Salu also offered secure online messaging, Web sites for practices within each hub’s specialty and a prescription writer that worked on either PocketPC (now Windows Mobile) or Palm platforms. (It was not true e-prescribing because back in the pre-RxHub and SureScripts era, it didn’t transmit information to pharmacies.

Also, from what I could gather from searching the Internet, Salu had partnerships with Healthwise, Payerpath (now part of Misys Healthcare Systems) and a few others.

But what ever happened to Salu and its brands? If the company went out of business, did someone else take over the sites? I found no sign that either Dermdex or NeuroHub was still active. Help, please!