Healia

Last updated
Healia, Inc.
Company type Subsidiary
Industry Search engine, Health informatics
Founded2001
FounderDr. Tom Eng
FateAcquired by Meredith Corporation (2007)
Headquarters Bellevue, Washington, U.S.
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Dr. Tom Eng (President)
ServicesConsumer health search
Parent Meredith Corporation (2007–2021)
Dotdash Meredith (2021–present)
Website www.healia.com

Healia is a health vertical search engine and online health community. Healia's search engine uses algorithms to assess quality and to categorize Web documents. Healia Communities is composed of online health support groups that enable people to share health experiences, connect with others, and ask questions of peers and health professionals. Healia, Inc. is located in Bellevue, Washington, USA.

Contents

Quality Index Score and Personalization Algorithms

Healia use patent-pending Quality Index Score to judge the quality of search results. Healia uses algorithms to assess the content and audience focus of health Web pages and allows users to filter search results by those characteristics.

Management team

President & Founder: Thomas R. Eng (VMD, MPH). [1] [2]

Thomas (Tom) Eng received a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Award from the National Institutes of Health(NIH) in 2001 to develop this website. The National Cancer Institute (part of the NIH) assisted with research and development, and Healia was incorporated in March 2005. It became available to the public in September 2006. [3]

Healia was acquired by Meredith Corporation in June 2007.

Healia's CTO is Mike Schultz (PhD) who runs the technology development. [4] [5]

AMSA Partnership

In 2009, Healia partnered with the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) to provide medical students an opportunity to answer health questions posed in Healia Communities alongside licensed professionals.

Drawbacks

The searching results are heavily US biased with many initial search results finding information from American web sites. [6]

See also

References

  1. "SNAPforSeniors - Advisory Board". Archived from the original on 2007-09-28. Retrieved 2007-06-04.
  2. "Thomas Eng - SPHCM Faculty Bio". Archived from the original on 2006-08-28. Retrieved 2007-06-04.
  3. Timm, Donna (2007-04-07). "Healia". Journal of the Medical Library Association. 95 (2): 219–221. doi:10.3163/1536-5050.95.2.219. ISSN   1536-5050. PMC   1852626 .
  4. "People Inc. - America's Largest Digital & Print Publisher". www.people.inc. Retrieved 2026-02-27.
  5. "The Health Care Blog: TECH: Search engines revving up-Healia review". Archived from the original on 2007-05-09. Retrieved 2007-06-04.
  6. "We are an Evidence-Based Healthcare Consultancy from the heart of Oxford". Minervation. Archived from the original on January 25, 2025. Retrieved 2026-02-27.