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Background
InnerCityMedicine Networks (ICMN), an African American owned & operated digital healthcare media company announced this week at the 2008 National Medical Association Convention in Atlanta, GA, that it is launching its out-of-home (OOH) digital signage medical television network. ICMNTV -- the name of this project -- will be locally-branded for urban healthcare channel partners such as National Medical Association affiliates, HBCU-affiliated medical schools, several renowned urban teaching hospitals, and community-based clinics.

"We blew a hole in the stratosphere at the NMA convention," said Darin Gilstrap, President & CEO, in an e-mail communication to me today. "We received some 1000+ inquiries and exuberant praise for our business model from the likes of NIH, FDA, CDC, and other major hospitals, medical groups, and physicians. Our role will be reaching the end-user with our digital screens and health programming."

"In 2001 and 2007, key-opinion leaders from the NMA released a study recognizing that direct-to-consumer advertising was beneficial to ethnic communities," says the ICMN press release. See the study results here. "ICMNTV provides a technologically-sophisticated distribution platform to reach these at-risk consumers at a time when key healthcare questions and decisions are being considered."

This OOH network will be delivered via wide LCD screens right inside the waiting rooms of physicians, hospitals, and clinics.

According to the press release: "ICMNTV will narrowcast to an estimated 10,000 medical practices across the top-25 urban DMAs (e.g. Atlanta, Washington-DC, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Nashville, etc.). Programming is designed in a compelling and entertaining manner to create awareness about key diseases and therapeutic solutions required to preserve life and the quality of life. Content will be comprised of fast-paced, quick-moving segments two to three-minutes in length interspersed with sponsors messaging on therapeutic and health management solutions. ICMNTV is absolutely free to the individual practitioner and content and advertising is updated continuously via digital download to the LCD-TV each night.

Some Questions/Topics to be Discussed

1. Who or what is InnerCityMedicine Networks?
2. What's the company's mission?
3. What differentiates ICMN from other healthcare media & marketing companies (i.e. Websites, Point-of-Care TV networks, magazines, etc.)?
4. What's the value-add to the overall consumer wellness industry?
5. Where are your networks currently deployed, or planned?
6. Can you describe the type of programming and advertising that will be seen in waiting-rooms?
7. How will you measure the success?

Darin Gilstrap, M.Sc.
Darin is a lifelong resident of Harlem, New York and brings 20 years of academic, clinical, and business healthcare experience to the helm of InnerCityMedicine Networks. Prior to starting ICMN, Darin worked as a mid-level clinical practitioner in critical care and cardiovascular technologies at several tri-state New York-area medical schools. Darin has also worked as a sales, marketing and continuing medical education consultant to several boutique and major pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, and managed care companies. As a healthcare industry consultant, Darin frequently used his urban clinical and socioeconomic acumen to produce highly successful multicultural consumer and physician healthcare education programs.

Darin holds a Masters of Science degree in cardiovascular technology and healthcare administration from Long Island University in Brooklyn, New York. In 2005, he completed the Executive Faculty Development Program at the Morehouse School of Medicine National Center for Primary Care in Atlanta, GA. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in premedical sciences from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Darin is also a graduate of the nationally-recognized Bronx High School of Science.