National Health Museum Web Site
Draws Record Audience

Access Excellence @ The National Health Museum (AE), the award-winning Web site for health and life science teachers and learners, earned its highest audience ever in the month of March 2004 when more than 866,000 individual visits were logged on to the site during this month and more than 7.3 million “hits” sustained.

With these numbers, AE’s average monthly traffic in 2004 now averages a record-breaking 6.6 million "hits" and 784,000 visitors each month. "These record-breaking figures provide new evidence that the Museum’s educational programming and Access Excellence’s stellar resources are as popular as ever with health and life science teachers and learners,” said National Health Museum President J. Mark Dunham. "I am particularly grateful to our Access Excellence staff and Fellows across the nation who help maintain the site and keep the content current and fresh,” added Dunham.

The site has seen a monthly traffic increase of more than 13% in hits and 16% in visits in the past year. This represents an increase of more than 775,000 hits and more than 100,000 visits per month.

AE currently ranks in the top two percent of all Web sites to which other sites are linked and has been recognized by the Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. Department of Education for general excellence. The site has received dozens of awards for content including Encyclopedia Britannica's "Best of the Web," Lycos' "Top Five Percent" and Health Explorer's "Best Site." AE began its service as a National Health Museum program in 1999, when it was donated to the Museum by its original developer Genentech, Inc., a leading biotechnology company.