SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

FORM 10-K

FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2003

OR

FOR THE TRANSITION PERIOD FROM      TO

Commission File Number 001-8833

HEALTHSTREAM, INC.

(615) 301-3100
(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

Securities Registered Pursuant To Section 12(b) Of The Act:
None

Securities Registered Pursuant To Section 12(g) Of The Act:
Common Stock, No Par Value

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15 (d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes x No o

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K. o

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is an accelerated filer (as defined in Exchange Act Rule 12b-2). Yes o No x

The aggregate market value of the Common Stock issued and outstanding and held by non-affiliates of the Registrant, based upon the closing sales price for the Common Stock on the NASDAQ National Market on June 30, 2003 was $33,242,516. All executive officers and directors of the registrant have been deemed, solely for the purpose of the foregoing calculation, to be “affiliates” of the registrant.

As of March 23, 2004, there were 20,455,998 shares of the Registrant’s common stock outstanding.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Portions of the Registrant’s definitive Proxy Statement for its 2004 Annual Meeting of Shareholders are incorporated by reference into Part III hereof.

HEALTHSTREAM, INC.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ANNUAL REPORT ON FORM 10-K

PART I

This Annual Report contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such forward-looking statements include, among others, those statements including the words “expects,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “believes,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “continue” and similar language or the negative of such terms or other comparable terminology. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, HealthStream’s actual results may differ significantly from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed in the section “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this document. In addition, factors that we are not currently aware of could harm our future operating results. You should carefully review the risks described in other documents HealthStream files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. HealthStream undertakes no obligation to publicly release any revisions to the forward-looking statements or reflect events or circumstances after the date of this document.

Item 1. Business

OVERVIEW AND HISTORY

HealthStream, Inc. (“HealthStream” or the “Company”) provides Internet-based solutions and services to meet the training and education needs of the healthcare industry. Our learning solutions are helping healthcare organizations to improve compliance, develop their workforce, and reduce risks. Focused primarily on healthcare organizations (HCO) and pharmaceutical and medical device companies (PMD), HealthStream’s customers are comprised of over 780 healthcare organizations (predominately acute-care facilities) throughout the United States and include relationships with eight of the top ten pharmaceutical companies and nine of the top ten medical device companies.

The Company’s flagship product is the “HealthStream Learning Center™,” our proprietary, Internet-based learning platform, which currently has approximately 839,000 contracted hospital-based subscribers. Also added in the last year are our Competency Compass™, an online performance assessment and management solution, and HospitalDirect™, a software application that delivers product training in hospitals. Services provided to and on behalf of pharmaceutical and medical device companies, include live and online education and training activities for both healthcare professionals, as well as medical industry sales representatives. Medical device companies also provide commercial support for device training within hospitals through our HospitalDirect™ platform, and along with pharmaceutical companies, provide commercial support for some of our continuing education activities.

Headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, the Company was incorporated in 1990 and began marketing its Internet-based solutions in March 1999. Including a satellite office in Denver, Colorado, HealthStream has 143 employees. From an initial focus on technology-based training, HealthStream evolved to provide full-service delivery of training and education for the healthcare industry. The Company completed its initial public offering (IPO) in April of 2000.

INDUSTRY BACKGROUND

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the healthcare industry exceeded $1.4 trillion of spending in 2002, or approximately 14 percent of the gross domestic product. Hospital care expenditures accounted for $451 billion, or 31.7%, of the $1.4 trillion industry. Approximately 10.4 million professionals are employed in the health care segment of the domestic economy, with slightly more than half, or 5.3 million, employed in healthcare organizations, our target market for the HealthStream Learning Center™ and HospitalDirect™.

The 5.3 million healthcare organization professionals predominately work in the nation’s approximately 5,000 acute-care hospitals, and are required by federal mandates and accrediting bodies to train in a number of areas. This training includes safety training mandated by both the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, or JCAHO, for all institutional-based healthcare workers as well as training on patient information confidentiality required under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

In hospitals, staffing issues and personnel shortages have also contributed to the need for enhanced workforce development as well as additional competency based training. According to the American Hospital Association (AHA, 2002), the rate of unfilled positions for registered nurses in 2001 was 13 percent. The shortage of nurses is projected to grow to over 800,000 by 2020. As reported by the American Journal of Nursing (April, 2003), offering training and educational opportunities to hospital personnel is increasingly recommended as a retention and recruitment incentive.

In addition, to keep abreast of the latest developments and meet licensing, certification, and credentialing requirements, many healthcare professionals must obtain continuing education. Continuing education requirements include continuing education for nurses, emergency

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medical services personnel, first responder personnel, radiologic personnel and physicians. Pharmaceutical and medical device companies must also provide their medical industry sales representatives with training mandated for the healthcare industry and training for new products. They also provide support for education and training for those audiences that use their products in healthcare organizations.

Finally, the hospital industry continues to operate under intense pressure to reduce costs as a result of reductions in government reimbursement and increased focus on cost containment consistent with participation of patients in managed care programs. In addition, hospitals, as well as pharmaceutical and medical device companies continue to experience rising operating costs, coupled with increased pressure to measure and report on the outcomes of the dollars spent on training. Our products and services are designed to meet these needs by reducing healthcare organizations’ costs of training while improving learning outcomes, enhancing reporting capabilities, and supporting customers’ business objectives.

HEALTHSTREAM’S SOLUTIONS

Services to healthcare organizations

HealthStream’s solutions help healthcare organizations meet their ongoing training, education, and compliance needs. We bring training and education content together with administrative and management tools through our Internet-based platform, the HealthStream Learning Center™ (HLC). This combination supports healthcare administrators in configuring training to meet the precise needs of different groups of employees, modifying training materials, and documenting that training has been completed. At December 31, 2003, 839,000 healthcare professionals had contracted subscriptions for our services. Pricing for the HLC is subscription based, with fees based on the number of users, content provided and other factors. We offer training, implementation and account management services to facilitate integration of this technology product into our customer’s operating environments. Fees for training are based on the time and efforts of the personnel involved.

Our online content is hosted in a central data center that allows end users Internet access to HLC services, thereby eliminating the need for onsite local implementations of installed learning management products. As a result, a significant number of our customers that historically used our installed learning management products have transitioned to our Internet-based platform. Our installed learning management software contracts historically consisted of an upfront license fee, additional content sales, and ongoing maintenance and support.

We also offer our customers an online competency assessment and performance management solution, Competency Compass™. Competency assessment will soon be a requirement of hospitals and healthcare organizations for maintaining accreditation, based on new JCAHO requirements to evaluate, document, and report performance competencies. The Competency Compass provides an effective means of determining which competencies are associated with each position and evaluating and documenting competency assessments. To facilitate this process, a comprehensive dictionary of job profiles used in healthcare organizations is included in Competency Compass that lists corresponding competencies associated with each of those jobs. This product delivers a custom training program of courses available through the HLC that uniquely responds to the needs identified and strengths discovered of individual employees.

Along with the Internet-based HLC, we also offer healthcare organizations with full-service capabilities to convert existing course materials to a Web-enabled format through our HealthStream Authoring Center™. Pricing for this product is subscription based, with fees based on the number of users and a separate fee for licenses.

Our strategy is to expand our services to existing customers and grow our existing customer base of approximately 839,000 contracted subscribers using the Internet-based HLC, while continuing to transition our installed learning management product customers to our Internet-based HLC. We believe our existing sales force and market conditions offer us the opportunity to continue to grow our HLC customer base.

Services to pharmaceutical and medical device companies

Our services to pharmaceutical companies and medical device companies include live and online educational and training activities for healthcare professionals, as well as online training for medical industry sales representatives. As an accredited provider of continuing education activities for physicians, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare professionals, our services include planning, development, implementation and administration of these activities. Services for live activities can further include development of course agendas, coordination of subject matter experts, preparation of course materials, and registration of attendees. Pricing for live activity services are based on the scope of the project, including the size of the event, number of attendees and other factors. Live educational activities also include preceptorships and proctorships for various specialties that take place within the hospital environment. Preceptorships and proctorships are live interactive activities with small groups of healthcare professionals, designed to provide them with supervised experience in a clinical environment. Pricing for these activities are usually based on a per attendee basis. Pricing for online activities

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varies from project to project, and is based on time and efforts of the personnel involved. Mandated training for manufacturer sales force personnel is priced on a per user basis. We also offer both live and archived Web casts of medical procedures, thought-leader discussions, and other events in a cost effective manner to facilitate the provision of training or continuing education. In addition, we can develop custom courseware for our customers’ specific training needs. Pricing for these services is generally based on time and efforts involved. Our development group responsible for such services includes programmers, instructional and multimedia designers, graphic artists, and project managers. In addition to our development employees, we also utilize third party resources as needed. Live and online event activities may be supported by an educational grant by a pharmaceutical or medical device company. Fees or the amount of the grant vary based on the scope of the event, the target audience, publicity and other peripheral services related to the event.

HospitalDirect^TM, a newly introduced product, is intended to leverage our subscriber network of hospital-based personnel by delivering online product training and other educational activities through our Internet-based HLC. Pricing charged to medical device and pharmaceutical companies includes initial content development services and subsequent subscription pricing based on the number of hospital facilities selected to receive the training and education.

We also provide live educational activities for nurses and technicians conducted within healthcare organizations, as well as continuing education study guides and educational activities on the exhibit floor at the annual AORN (Association of PeriOperative Registered Nurses) Congress. All of these activities are supported by either pharmaceutical or medical device companies. Our strategy includes expanding our revenues by further developing customer relationships and by leveraging our existing base of Internet-based HLC customers for deployment of pharmaceutical and medical device training and education through both existing products as well as development of new products.

ACQUISITIONS

We have made one acquisition during the past three years, in January 2001. We acquired six companies in 2000. To date, our acquisitions have focused on adding products or services, increasing our customer base and/or providing enabling technologies that are complementary to our existing business. We believe we have recognized economies of scale through acquisitions in markets in which we already had a presence. In addition, we have expanded our product and service offerings by leveraging products that can operate on our existing technology platform. To date, all acquisitions have been accounted for using the purchase method of accounting.

CUSTOMERS

We provide our training and education solutions to customers across a broad range of entities within the healthcare industry, including healthcare organizations (including government entities) and pharmaceutical and medical device companies. During 2003, one customer represented more than 10% of our net revenue. We derived approximately 15% of net revenue from HCA, Inc. during 2003. The following is a partial list of customers that have purchased or contracted for products and services from HealthStream.

SALES, MARKETING, AND CUSTOMER SUPPORT

We market our products and services primarily through our direct sales force. As of December 31, 2003, our sales and relationship management personnel consisted of approximately 35 employees based at our corporate headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee and in Denver, Colorado, as well as remote home office sales locations. Our geographically dispersed field sales organization is divided into three territory teams, each team consisting of sales personnel focused on our hospital audience, sales personnel focused on our pharmaceutical and medical device audience, content sales specialists, sales support specialists, and product specialists all led by a regional sales manager. The sales support specialists assist the field sales force by responding to initial inquiries, qualifying sales leads, preparing proposals and preparing sales contracts. In addition to sales professionals, we also employ program managers, who are responsible for live event services and account managers who work to develop and expand relationships, including contract renewals, with our customers.

We conduct a variety of marketing programs to promote our products and services, including product catalogs, user groups and trade shows, telemarketing campaigns, public relations, distribution of product specific literature, online promotion, direct mail and advertising. We also conduct geographically focused meetings with target customers and user groups with existing customers. Annually, we conduct a national users’ group in Nashville known as The Summit. We have an in-house marketing team that is responsible for these initiatives and for working with, and supporting, our product managers and sales force. We believe our ability to establish and maintain long-term customer relationships, adoption of our products and services and recurring sales are dependent on the strength of our customer service, operations and support team. Our customer service, operations and support team consists of approximately 26

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employees located in our corporate headquarters in Nashville. This team provides customer support to end users through a toll-free telephone line as well as electronic mail. Our representatives are trained to understand our philosophy and our specific sales, marketing and support issues. This team also maintains an ongoing dialog with our customer base to ensure a complete understanding of customer needs. These personnel also assist with ongoing issues and training of our products as well as to ensure anticipated renewals and incremental sales are achieved. The remaining personnel on this team are responsible for training and implementation of HLC customers.

TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT

HealthStream’s technology infrastructure is based on an open architecture and is designed to be secure, reliable, and expandable. Our software is a combination of proprietary applications, third-party database software, and operating systems that support acquisition and conversion of content, hosting and management of that content, publication of our Web sites, downloads of courseware, registration, tracking of users, and reporting of information for both internal and external use. We have designed this infrastructure to allow each component to be independently scaled by adding readily available hardware and software components.

Our network infrastructure, Web sites, and servers that deliver our services are hosted by third party providers. Our primary data center and hosting facility is in Chicago, while a second data center and hosting facility in Nashville (with a second vendor) is scheduled to be operational in the second quarter of 2004. Both providers maintain our equipment in a secure environment, including multiple redundancies in power sources and network connections. Our providers’ hosting centers are connected to the Internet through multiple, redundant high-speed fiber optic circuits. Monitoring of all servers, networks, and systems is performed by Company personnel on a continuous basis. Together with our providers, we employ numerous levels of enterprise firewall systems to protect our databases, customer information, and content library. Backups of all databases, data, and content files are performed on a daily basis. Data back-up tapes are archived at a secure remote location on a weekly basis.

COMPETITION

The healthcare education industry is highly fragmented, varies significantly in delivery methods (i.e., written materials, live events, satellite broadcasts, video, CD-ROM products and online products), and is composed of a wide variety of entities competing for customers. The sheer volume of healthcare information available to satisfy continuing education needs, rapid advances in medical developments, and the time constraints that healthcare professionals face make it difficult to quickly and efficiently access the continuing education content most relevant to an individual’s practice or profession. Historically, healthcare professionals have received continuing education and training through offline publications, such as medical journals and CD-ROMs, and by attending conferences and seminars. In addition, other healthcare workers and pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers’ sales and internal regulatory personnel usually fulfill their education and training needs through instructor-led programs from external vendors or internal training departments. While these approaches satisfy the ongoing requirements, they are limited in that they are typically costly and inconvenient. In addition, live courses are often limited in the breadth of offerings and do not provide a method for tracking training completion. The related results of these traditional methods, both from a business and compliance standpoint, are difficult to track and measure.

In addition to the competing delivery methods described above, we also have direct competitors. A number of smaller privately held companies offer competitive installed and Web based learning management products to the healthcare industry. We also compete with large scale learning management system providers such as DigitalThink, SABA and SumTotal Systems that provide their services to multiple industries, including healthcare. Primedia also provides healthcare focused continuing education via its satellite network together with certain transcript capabilities. Finally, over the past year we have also seen an increase in a teaming approach between consulting and technology entities to address larger scale projects.

We believe our solutions, which include both products and services that facilitate training for healthcare professionals, a wide assortment of content, a mechanism for measuring results, and the ability to provide all services on a single platform over the Internet, provide us with a competitive advantage. We believe that the principal competitive factors affecting the marketing of e-learning services to the healthcare industry include:

	•		features of the HLC product, including reporting, management functionality, scalability, and the ability to track utilization and results;
	•		scope and variety of Internet-based learning content available, including mandated content for OSHA, JCAHO, and HIPAA requirements, competency-based content, as well as the ability of entities to add their own Web-enabled content;
	•		scope and quality of professional services offered, including training and the expertise and technical knowledge of the providers’ employees;

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	•		ability to access and leverage an existing customer base to increase exposure for pharmaceutical and medical device companies;
	•		pricing;
	•		customer service and support; and
	•		effectiveness of sales and marketing efforts, and company reputation.

Collectively, these capabilities provide us with the ability to improve the quality of healthcare by improving the quality and access of healthcare training.

GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF THE INTERNET AND THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY

The Internet

The laws and regulations that govern our business change rapidly. The United States government and the governments of some states and foreign countries have attempted to regulate activities on the Internet. The following are some of the evolving areas of law that are relevant to our business:

	•		Privacy Law. Current and proposed federal, state and foreign privacy regulations and other laws restricting the collection, use, confidentiality and disclosure of personal information could limit our ability to collect information or use the information in our databases or derived from other sources, to generate revenues. It may be costly to implement security or other measures designed to comply with any new legislation.
	•		Encryption Laws. Many copyright owner associations have lobbied the federal government for laws requiring copyrighted materials transmitted over the Internet to be digitally encrypted in order to track rights and prevent unauthorized use of copyrighted materials. If these laws are adopted, we may incur substantial costs to comply with these requirements or change the way we do business.

	•		Content Regulation. Both foreign and domestic governments have adopted and proposed laws governing the content of material transmitted over the Internet. These include laws relating to obscenity, indecency, libel and defamation. We could be liable if content delivered by us violates these regulations.
	•		Information Security Accountability Regulation. A couple of bills are pending in Congress that could require public companies to obtain certification by an independent third party of the company’s computer information security. If this legislation is enacted, we may incur costs to comply with these security requirements. The preliminary nature of such legislation and the lack of related guidance makes estimation of related costs difficult.
	•		Sales and Use Tax. Through December 31, 2003, we collected sales, use or other taxes on taxable transactions in all states in which we have employees. While HealthStream expects that this approach is appropriate, other states or foreign jurisdictions may seek to impose tax collection obligations on companies like us that engage in online commerce. If they do, these obligations could limit the growth of electronic commerce in general and limit our ability to profit from the sale of our services over the Internet.

Laws and regulations directly applicable to e-commerce and Internet communications are becoming more prevalent. Recent sessions of Congress enacted Internet laws regarding online copyright infringement. Congress continues considering laws regarding Internet taxation. The dynamic nature of this regulatory environment increases the uncertainty regarding the marketplace impact of such regulation. The enactment of any additional laws or regulations may increase our cost of conducting business or otherwise harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

Regulation of Education and Training for Healthcare Professionals

Allied Disciplines. Various allied health professionals are required to obtain continuing education to maintain their licenses. For example, emergency medical services personnel may be required to acquire up to 20 continuing education hours per year. These requirements vary by state and depend on the classification of the employee.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). OSHA regulations require employers to provide training to employees to minimize the risk of injury from various potential workplace hazards. Employers in the healthcare industry are required to provide training with respect to various topics, including blood borne pathogens exposure control, laboratory safety and tuberculosis infection control. OSHA regulations require employers to keep records of their employees’ completion of training with respect to these workplace hazards.

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Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). JCAHO mandates that employers in the healthcare industry provide certain workplace safety and patient interaction training to employees. JCAHO required training may include programs on infection control, patient bill of rights, radiation safety and incident reporting. Healthcare organizations are required to provide and document training on these topics to receive JCAHO accreditation. In addition, JCAHO imposes continuing education requirements on physicians that relate to each physician’s specific staff appointments.

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). HIPAA regulations require organizations that maintain or transmit health information electronically in connection with certain transactions to provide reasonable and appropriate safeguards to protect the integrity and confidentiality of individually identifiable healthcare information. These healthcare organizations are required to establish, maintain and provide training with regard to their policies and procedures for protecting the integrity and confidentiality of individually identifiable healthcare information. Healthcare organizations are required to document training on these topics to support their compliance.

Continuing Education (CE). State nurse practice laws are usually the source of authority for establishing the state board of nursing, which then establishes the state’s CE requirements for professional nurses. Continuing education programs are provided through accredited providers approved by the American Nurses Credentialing Center Commission on Accreditation and/or the state board of nursing. CE requirements vary widely from state to state. Twenty-nine states require some form of CE in order to renew a nurse’s license. In some states, the CE requirement only applies to re-licensure of advance practice nurses, or additional CEs may be required of this category of nurses. On average, 12 to 15 CEs are required annually, with reporting generally on a bi-annual basis. Certifications may also require continuing education credits (e.g., CNOR – certification of perioperative nursing).

Continuing Medical Education (CME). State licensing boards, professional organizations and employers require physicians to certify that they have accumulated a minimum number of continuing medical education hours to maintain their licenses. Generally, each state’s medical practice laws authorize the state’s board of medicine to establish and track CME requirements. Thirty-four state medical licensing boards currently have CME requirements. The number of CME hours required by each state ranges up to 50 hours per year. Other sources of CME requirements are state medical societies and practice specialty boards. The failure to obtain the requisite amount and type of CME could result in non-renewal of the physician’s license to practice medicine and/or membership in a medical or practice specialty society. The American Medical Association’s, or AMA’s, Physician Recognition Award, or PRA, is the most widely recognized certificate for acknowledging physician completion of a CME course. The AMA classifies continuing education activities as either category 1, which includes formal CME activities, or category 2, which includes most informal activities. Sponsors want to designate CME activities for AMA PRA category 1 because this has become the benchmark for quality in formally organized educational activities. Almost all agencies nationwide that require CME participation specify AMA PRA category 1 credit. Only institutions and organizations accredited to provide CME can designate an activity for AMA PRA category 1. The Accreditation Council on Continuing Medical Education, or ACCME, is responsible for the accreditation of medical schools, state medical societies and other institutions and organizations that provide CME activities for a national or regional audience of physicians. Only institutions and organizations are accredited. The ACCME and state medical societies do not accredit or approve individual activities. State medical societies, operating under the aegis of the ACCME, accredit institutions and organizations that provide CME activities primarily for physicians within the state or bordering states. We are an accredited provider of CME by the ACCME.

Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

The OIG issued Compliance Program Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Manufacturers (Guidelines) in April 2003. This document includes guidelines related to continuing educational activities supported by pharmaceutical and medical device companies. The Guidelines could affect the type and extent of future support for our continuing education activities. The trade associations for the pharmaceutical and medical device industries (PhRMA and AdvaMed, respectively) also promulgated their own codes of ethics in response to the Guidelines. The Company follows the rules and guidelines provided by ACCME, ANCC, and other continuing education accrediting bodies to ensure that its continuing education programming is free from commercial bias and consistent with the OIG Guidelines.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission

Current FDA and FTC rules and enforcement actions and regulatory policies or those that the FDA or the FTC may develop in the future could have a material adverse effect on our ability to provide existing or future applications or services to our end users or obtain the necessary corporate sponsorship to do so. The FDA and the FTC regulate the form, content and dissemination of labeling, advertising and promotional materials, including direct-to-consumer prescription drug and medical device advertising, prepared by, or for, pharmaceutical, biotechnology or medical device companies. The FTC regulates over-the-counter drug advertising and, in some cases, medical device advertising. Generally, regulated companies must limit their advertising and promotional materials to discussions of the FDA-approved claims and, in limited circumstances, to a limited number of claims not approved by the FDA. Therefore, any information that promotes the use of pharmaceutical or medical device products that is presented with our services is subject to the full array of the FDA and FTC requirements and enforcement actions. We believe that banner advertisements, sponsorship links and any

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educational programs that lack independent editorial control that we may present with our services could be subject to FDA or FTC regulation. While the FDA and the FTC place the principal burden of compliance with advertising and promotional regulations on the advertiser, if the FDA or FTC finds that any regulated information presented with our services violates FDA or FTC regulations, they may take regulatory action against us or the advertiser or sponsor of that information. In 1996, the FDA announced it would develop a guidance document expressing a broad set of policies dealing with the promotion of pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device products on the Internet. Although the FDA has yet to issue that guidance document, agency officials continue to predict its eventual release. The FDA guidance document may reflect new regulatory policies that more tightly regulate the format and content of promotional information on the Internet.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND OTHER PROPRIETARY RIGHTS

We obtain a portion of our content under license agreements with publishers or authors, through assignments or work for hire arrangements with third parties and from internal staff development. We require our content partners to represent and warrant that their content does not infringe on any third-party copyrights and that they have the right to provide their content and have obtained all third-party consents necessary to do so. Our content partners also agree to indemnify us against liability we might sustain due to the content they provide.

To protect our proprietary rights, we rely generally on copyright, trademark and trade secret laws, confidentiality agreements with employees and third parties and license agreements with consultants, vendors and customers. We own federal service mark registrations for the marks “HEALTHSTREAM,” “HOSPITALDIRECT” and “OR PROTOCOL.”

AVAILABLE INFORMATION

The Company files reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and other reports from time to time. The public may read and copy any materials we file with the SEC at the SEC’s Public Reference Room at 450 Fifth Street, NW, Washington, DC 20549. The public may obtain information on the operation of the Public Reference Room by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330. The Company is an electronic filer and the SEC maintains an Internet site at http://www.sec.gov that contains the reports, proxy and information statements, and other information filed electronically. Our website address is www.healthstream.com. Please note that our website address is provided as an inactive textual reference only. We make available free of charge through our website, the annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and all amendments to those reports as soon as reasonably practicable after such material is electronically filed with or furnished to the SEC. The information provided on our website is not part of this report, and is therefore not incorporated by reference unless such information is otherwise specifically referenced elsewhere in this report.

OUR EMPLOYEES

As of December 31, 2003 we employed 143 persons. Our success will depend in large part upon our ability to attract and retain qualified employees. We face competition in this regard from other companies, but we believe that we maintain good relations with our employees. We are not subject to any collective bargaining agreements.

EXECUTIVE OFFICERS OF THE REGISTRANT

The following is a brief summary of the business experience of each of the executive officers of the Company. Officers of the Company are elected by the Board of Directors and serve at the pleasure of the Board of Directors. The following table sets forth certain information regarding the executive officers of the Company:

Robert A. Frist, Jr., one of our co-founders, has served as our chief executive officer and chairman of the board of directors since 1990 and president since 2001. Mr. Frist serves on the board of directors of HealthLeaders, Inc., a healthcare publisher and HearingPlanet, Inc., an online hearing aid distribution company. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in business with concentrations in finance, economics and marketing from Trinity University.

Arthur E. Newman has served as our chief financial officer and senior vice president since January 2000. From April 1990 to August 1999, Mr. Newman served as executive vice president overseeing finance, human resources, information systems and customer service and fulfillment for Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins, formerly Waverly, Inc., a publicly traded medical sciences publisher. In May

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1998, Waverly was acquired by Wolters Kluwer and merged with Wolters Kluwer’s existing U.S. based medical publisher, Lippincott-Raven Publishers. From August 1999 to January 2000, Mr. Newman served as the chief technology officer for Wolters Kluwer’s scientific, technical and medical companies consisting of five separate units. Mr. Newman serves on the board of directors of HealthLeaders, Inc., a healthcare publisher. Mr. Newman holds a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from the University of Miami and a Masters of Business Administration from Rutgers University.

Michael Pote has served as our senior vice president since August 1997. From January 1996 to August 1997, Mr. Pote served as vice president of Columbia Health Care Network, a managed care contractor. From August 1994 to June 1996, Mr. Pote served as vice president and administrator for Centennial Medical Center. Mr. Pote received a Bachelor of Science in education and a Masters of Science in education from Syracuse University.

Fred Perner has served as senior vice president since November 2000 and senior director from July 2000 to November 2000. From January 1999 until June 2000, Mr. Perner served as president of Education Design, Inc., a company acquired by HealthStream in July 2000. Mr. Perner served as corporate director of marketing for the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses from 1996 to 1999. From 1976 to 1988, Mr. Perner served various positions, including vice president of marketing and business development for the medical device group of Bristol Myers Squibb. Mr. Perner holds a Bachelor of Science in general management and a Masters in Business Administration from Indiana University. Mr. Perner also holds a J.D. from the University of Denver College of Law.

Susan A. Brownie has served as our vice president of finance and corporate controller since November 1999. From August 1986 until 1999, Ms. Brownie worked for KPMG LLP, a public accounting and consulting firm, most recently as a senior manager. She holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the College of William and Mary and is a certified public accountant.

RISK FACTORS

We believe that the risks and uncertainties described below and elsewhere in this document are the principal material risks facing the Company as of the date of this report. In the future, we may become subject to additional risks that are not currently known to us. Our business, financial condition or results of operations could be materially adversely affected by any of the following risks. The trading price of our common stock could decline due to any of the following risks.

Risks related to our business model.

Our relatively short operating history makes evaluating our business difficult.

Although we were incorporated in 1990, we did not initiate our online operations until March 1999. As a result, we have only a short operating history on which you can base an evaluation of our business and prospects. Our prospects must be considered in light of the risks, uncertainties, expenses and difficulties frequently encountered by companies in their early stages of development, particularly companies introducing new methods of delivering products and services into a cautious market like the healthcare industry. Our failure to successfully address these risks and uncertainties could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition. Some of these risks and uncertainties relate to our ability to:

	•		continue to attract and maintain a large base of customers, both on the healthcare organization and the pharmaceutical and medical device sides of the business;
	•		develop and maintain a scalable infrastructure, including additional hardware and software, customer and business support, systems and personnel, to support our business;
	•		develop and introduce desirable services and compelling content;
	•		establish and maintain strategic relationships with content providers or partners; and
	•		respond effectively to competitive and technological developments.

Our sales cycle is lengthy and can vary widely.

The period from our initial contact with a potential customer and the first purchase of our solution by the customer typically ranges from three to nine months, and in some cases has extended much further. The range in the sales cycle can be impacted by factors including an increasing trend towards more formal requests for proposals (RFP’s) process as well as formal budget timelines which impact timing of purchases by target customers. As a result of both of these factors, we have only limited ability to forecast the timing and type of sales. This, in turn, makes it more difficult to predict quarterly financial performance.

8

Failure to effectively manage growth of our operations and infrastructure could disrupt our operations and prevent us from generating the revenues we expect.

We currently are experiencing a period of expansion in our customer utilization patterns and related infrastructure. We anticipate continued expansion in subscriber utilization of our Internet-based learning products and other services. To manage our growth, we must successfully implement, constantly improve and effectively utilize our operational and financial systems. Our existing or planned operational and financial systems may not be sufficient to support our growth.

The market for online training and continuing education in the healthcare industry is relatively new and still evolving.

Uncertainty as to the level of demand and market acceptance for online training and continuing education in the healthcare industry exposes us to a high degree of risk. Although our sales of HIPAA content during 2002 and 2003 were promising, we cannot be sure that the healthcare community will completely adopt online training and continuing education as a complement of, or alternative to, traditional sources of training and continuing education. If the market for online training and continuing education fails to develop, develops more slowly than expected, becomes saturated with competitors, or e-learning does not prove to be an effective method for training, our business will suffer.

Failure to adequately address our customers’ needs in our products and services could prevent our anticipated growth in revenues.

Our management may not be able to effectively identify, manage and exploit existing and emerging market opportunities to meet the needs of our customers. If we do not adequately manage our product and service innovation opportunities, our business will suffer.

Within the healthcare industry, our customer channels are focused on two segments: healthcare organizations and pharmaceutical/ medical device companies. We rely on spending within these two segments and our business may suffer if financial pressures cause our potential or existing customers to cut back on our services.

There are several economic factors that have had an impact on the nation’s approximately 5,000 acute care hospitals. Some of these factors include labor costs, which constituted 40 percent of 2002 hospital revenues, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), with half of that allocated for staffing nurses. Also, the reduced Medicare payment increases that resulted from the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 and the lower payments that most hospitals accepted from managed care companies in the last several years have both had an adverse financial effect on the hospital segment. These financial pressures, along with several major hospital defaults and bankruptcies, have resulted in limited access to capital for hospitals. As HealthStream’s target market within the healthcare industry, hospitals’ financial pressures are salient in achieving our business objectives.

Financial analysts generally believe that medical device companies enjoy higher revenues and earnings growth, relative to their medical supply company counterparts, although they’re considered more volatile. The medical device industry is highly concentrated; the largest two percent of the 6,000 U.S. medical device firms log nearly half of the industry’s sales, according to the CMS. In addition, relatively short product life cycles for medical devices make the management and marketing strategies particularly crucial in this segment. These economic factors contribute to the volatility of this customer channel for HealthStream.

The top ten pharmaceutical companies account for 60 percent of U.S. drug sales, with the top company owning a ten percent market share of the U.S. pharmaceutical market in 2001, according to CMS. Successful research and development is the key driver for long-term growth, yet this may be held constant or reduced during profit crunches—like that experienced by some companies as the patent expires on their blockbuster drugs. Both branded and generic pharmaceutical companies fiercely litigate intellectually property and, as a result, may experience adverse financial consequences. As one of our two customer channels, these characteristics of the pharmaceutical and medical device segment could have an impact on HealthStream.

We may not be able to maintain our competitive position against current and potential competitors, especially those with significantly greater financial, marketing, technical and other resources.

Several of our competitors have longer operating histories and significantly greater financial, technical, marketing and other resources than us, and several of the larger e-learning companies have from time-to-time announced their intentions to enter the healthcare e-learning market. Still others offer a lower cost service alternative that may capture a portion of our potential customer base. In addition, if such competitors were to offer a complete e-learning solution to the healthcare industry, our competitive position could be adversely affected. These companies may be able to respond more quickly than us to new or changing opportunities, technologies, standards or customer requirements. Most of our customer subscription agreements are for short terms with no obligation to renew. The short terms of these agreements allow customers to more easily shift to one of our competitors.

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We may be unable to effectively implement our growth strategy, which could have an adverse effect on our business and competitive position in the industry.

Our business strategy includes increasing our market share and presence through sales to new customers, transitioning existing customers, further penetration and additional sales to existing customers, introductions of new products and services and strategic acquisitions that complement or enhance our business. We may not be able to identify, complete or integrate the operations of future acquisitions. Some of the risks that we may encounter in implementing our growth strategy include:

	•		expenses, delays and difficulties of identifying and integrating new products, services or acquired companies into our existing organization;
	•		diversion of management’s attention from other business matters;
	•		inability to generate sufficient revenue to offset acquisition or investment costs; and
	•		expenses of any undisclosed or potential liabilities of any acquired company.

If any of these risks are realized, our business could suffer. In addition, if we finance acquisitions by issuing equity securities, our existing stockholders may be diluted which could affect the market price of our stock. As a result, if we fail to properly evaluate and execute acquisitions and investments, our business and prospects may be seriously harmed.

We may not be able to develop enhancements to our existing products and services or achieve widespread acceptance of new features or keep pace with technological developments.

We plan to increase our revenues through sales to new customers as well as increasing our sales of additional courseware subscriptions and other products and services to existing customers. Our identification of additional features, content, products and services may not result in timely development of complementary products. In addition, the success of certain new products and services may be dependent on continued growth in our base of Internet-based customers or adoption of new methodology by new customers. Because healthcare training continues to change and evolve, we may be unable to accurately predict and develop features, content and other products to address the needs of the healthcare industry. During the past two years, we have invested in new products including HospitalDirect and Competency Compass. If these products are not accepted by new or existing customers, we may not be able to recover the cost of this development and our business will be harmed. Continued growth of our Internet-based customer population is dependent on our ability to continue to provide relevant products and services in a timely manner. The success of our business will depend on our ability to continue providing our products and services as well as continued content, product and service enhancements to address the needs of the healthcare industry.

Growth in courseware subscription revenues depend, in part, on our obtaining proper distribution rights from our content partners.

Most of our agreements with content providers are for initial terms of one to three years. The content partners may choose not to renew their agreements with us or may terminate the agreements early if we do not fulfill our contractual obligations. If a significant number of our content providers terminate or fail to renew their agreements with us on acceptable terms, it could result in a reduction in the number of courses we are able to distribute and decreased revenues. Most of our agreements with our content partners are also non-exclusive, and our competitors offer, or could offer, training and continuing education content that is similar to or the same as ours. If publishers and authors, including our current content partners, offer information to users or our competitors on more favorable terms than those offered to us or increase our license fees, our competitive position and our profit margins and prospects could be harmed. In addition, the failure by our content partners to deliver high-quality content and to continuously upgrade their content in response to user demand and evolving healthcare advances and trends could result in user dissatisfaction and inhibit our ability to attract users.

Financial Risks

Our relatively short operating history may prevent us from forecasting our results of operations accurately.

As a result of our short operating history, we do not have historical financial data for a significant number of periods upon which to forecast quarterly revenues and results of operations. We believe that period-to-period comparisons of our operating results prior to January 1, 2002 are not necessarily meaningful and should not be relied upon as indicators of future performance. In addition, our operating results may vary substantially. This variability results primarily from the differences in levels of sales activity and the related revenue recognition for our various products and services. The actual effect of these factors on the price of our stock, however, will be difficult to assess due to our short operating history. In one or more future quarters, our results of operations may fall below historical results or the expectations of securities analysts and investors, and the trading price of our common stock may decline.

10

We expect net losses in the future and acceptable profitability results may not materialize.

In 2003, we had a net loss of approximately $3.4 million. At December 31, 2003, our accumulated deficit was $68.9 million. We expect continued net losses during 2004. There is no assurance whether and, if so, when we will become profitable.

The timing of our revenue recognition from sales activity is dependent upon achievement of certain events, and our inability to accurately predict them will harm our operating results.

Our ability to record revenues is dependent upon several factors including the transfer of customer-specific information such as unique subscriber IDs, which are required for us to implement customers on our Internet-based learning platform. Accordingly, if customers do not provide us with the specified information in a timely manner, our ability to recognize revenues will be delayed, which could adversely impact our operating results. In addition, completion and acceptance by our customers of developed content and courseware must be achieved, and utilization of courseware is required in connection with subscription Internet-based learning products and commercial support arrangements.

A significant portion of our revenue is generated from a relatively small number of customers.

We provide our Internet-based training and education services to HCA Information Technology & Services, Inc. (HCA) pursuant to an agreement that expires in October 2005. During 2003, we derived approximately 15%, or $2.7 million, of our net revenues from HCA. HCA has the right to terminate this agreement if we fail to deliver the required services under this agreement on a timely basis. We also derive a significant portion of our revenues from a relatively small number of customers. A termination of our agreement with HCA or several of our other significant customers would have a material adverse effect on our business as well as our ability to secure other large customers for the services of our Internet-based HLC product.

Because we recognize revenue from subscriptions for our products and services over the term of the subscription period, downturns or upturns in sales may not be immediately reflected in our operating results.

We recognize a large portion of our revenue from customers monthly over the terms of their subscription agreements, which are typically one to three years, although terms can range from less than one or up to five years. As a result, much of the revenue we report in each quarter is deferred revenue from subscription agreements entered into during previous quarters. Consequently, a decline in new or renewed subscriptions in any one quarter will not necessarily be fully reflected in the revenue in that quarter and will negatively affect our revenue in future quarters. In addition, we may be unable to adjust our cost structure to reflect these reduced revenues. Accordingly, the effect of significant downturns in sales and market acceptance of our products and services may not be fully reflected in our results of operations until future periods. Conversely, our subscription model also makes it difficult for us to rapidly increase our revenue through additional sales in any period, as revenue from new customers must be recognized over the applicable subscription term.

We may not be able to meet our strategic business objectives unless we obtain additional financing, which may not be available to us on favorable terms or at all.

The net proceeds of our initial public offering, or IPO, and the preceding private offerings of our common and preferred stock, together with our current cash reserves, are expected to be sufficient to meet our cash requirements through at least 2004. However, we may need to raise additional funds in order to:

	•		develop new, or enhance existing, services or products;
	•		respond to competitive pressures;
	•		finance working capital requirements;
	•		sustain content and development relationships; or
	•		acquire complementary businesses, technology, content or products.

At December 31, 2003, we had approximately $18.0 million in cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash, investments in marketable securities and related interest receivable. We have commitments to pay approximately $340,000 in 2004 related to certain agreements with various content partners and other strategic agreements. We expect to incur approximately $2.0 million of capital expenditures during 2004 to support our business. We expect net operating losses to continue through at least 2004. We cannot assure you that additional financing will be available on terms favorable to us, or at all. If adequate funds are not available or are not available on acceptable terms, our ability to fund expansion, take advantage of available opportunities, develop or enhance services or products or otherwise respond to competitive pressures would be significantly limited. If we raise additional funds by issuing equity or convertible debt securities, the percentage ownership of our shareholders will be reduced.

11

Our stock price is likely to be volatile.

The market price of our common stock is likely to be volatile and could be subject to significant fluctuations in response to factors such as the following, some of which are beyond our control: quarterly variations in our operating results; operating results that vary from the expectations of securities analysts and investors; changes in expectations as to our future financial performance; changes in market valuations of other online service companies; future sales of our common stock; stock market price and volume fluctuations; general political and economic conditions, such as a recession or war or terrorist attacks or interest rate or currency rate fluctuations; and other risk factors described in this Form 10-K. Moreover, our stock is thinly traded, and we have a relatively small public float. These factors may adversely affect the market price of our common stock. In addition, the market prices for stocks of many Internet related and technology companies have historically experienced extreme price fluctuations that appeared to bear no relationship to the operating performance of these companies.

Risks Related to Sales, Marketing and Competition

We expect competition to increase in the future which could reduce our revenues, potential profits and overall market share.

The market for traditional and online training and continuing education services is competitive. Barriers to entry on the Internet are relatively low, and we expect competition to increase in the future. We face competitive pressures from numerous actual and potential competitors, both online and offline, many of which have longer operating histories, greater brand name recognition, larger consumer bases and significantly greater financial, technical and marketing resources than we do. There is no assurance that online training and continuing education services provided by our existing and potential competitors will not be perceived by the healthcare community as being superior to ours.

We continue to refine our pricing and our products and services and cannot predict whether the ongoing changes will be accepted

Over the past few years we have implemented several changes and continue to make such changes in our pricing and our product and service offerings to increase revenue and to meet the needs of our customers. We cannot predict whether our current pricing and products and services, or any ongoing refinements we make will be accepted by our existing customer base or by prospective customers. If our customers and potential customers decide not to accept our current or future pricing or product and service offerings, it could have a material adverse effect on our business.

We do not have an adequate history with our revenue model to predict the rate of customer subscription renewals and other activity and the impact these renewals and other activities will have on our revenue or operating results.

Our Internet-based HLC customers have no obligation to renew their subscriptions for our products or services after the expiration of the initial subscription period and in fact, some customers have elected not to renew their subscription. In addition, our customers may renew at a lower pricing or activity level. We have limited historical data with respect to rates of customer subscription renewals and expect that the number of accounts up for renewal will increase during and after 2004, so we cannot accurately predict customer renewal rates. Our customers’ renewal rates may decline or fluctuate as a result of a number of factors, including their dissatisfaction with our service. In addition, much of our live event activity is of a recurring and predictable nature, however, we do not have any long term contracts that obligate these customers beyond the current contract terms. If our customers do not renew their subscriptions for our service, or if their activity levels decline, our revenue may decline and our business will suffer.

Our future success also depends in part on our ability to sell additional features or enhanced editions of our service to our current customers. This may require increasingly sophisticated and costly sales efforts that are targeted at senior management. If these efforts are not successful, our business may suffer.

Risks Related to Operations

We may be unable to adequately develop our systems, processes and support in a manner that will enable us to meet the demand for our services.

We have provided our online products and services for less than five years and continue to develop our ability to provide our courses and education management systems on both a subscription and transactional basis over the Internet. Our future success will depend on our ability to effectively develop the infrastructure, including additional hardware and software, and implement the services, including customer support, necessary to meet the demand for our services. Our inability from time to time to successfully develop the necessary systems and implement the necessary services on a timely basis has resulted in our customers experiencing some delays or interruptions in their service. Such delays or interruptions may cause customers to become dissatisfied with our service and move to competing providers of traditional and online training and education services. If this happens, our revenues could be adversely affected, which would have a material adverse effect on our financial condition.

12

Our business operations could be significantly disrupted if we lose members of, or fail to integrate, our management team.

Our future performance will be substantially dependent on the continued services of our management team and our ability to retain and motivate them. The loss of the services of any of our officers or senior managers could harm our business, as we may not be able to find suitable replacements. We do not have employment agreements with any of our key personnel, other than our chief executive officer, and we do not maintain any “key person” life insurance policies.

We may not be able to hire and retain a sufficient number of qualified employees and, as a result, we may not be able to grow as we expect or maintain the quality of our services.

Our future success will depend on our ability to attract, train, retain and motivate other highly skilled technical, managerial, marketing and customer support personnel. Competition for these personnel is intense, especially for developers, Web designers and sales personnel, and we may be unable to successfully attract sufficiently qualified personnel. We have experienced difficulty in the past hiring qualified personnel in a timely manner for these positions. The pool of qualified technical personnel, in particular, is limited in Nashville, Tennessee, which is where our headquarters are located. We will need to maintain the size of our staff to support our anticipated growth, without compromising the quality of our offerings or customer service. Our inability to locate, hire, integrate and retain qualified personnel in sufficient numbers may reduce the quality of our services.

We must continue to upgrade our technology infrastructure, both hardware and software, to effectively meet demand for our services.

We must continue to add hardware and enhance software to accommodate the increased content in our library and increased use of our Web site. In order to make timely decisions about hardware and software enhancements, we must be able to accurately forecast the growth in demand for our services. This growth in demand for our services is difficult to forecast and the potential audience for our services is large. If we are unable to increase the data storage and processing capacity of our systems at least as fast as the growth in demand, our systems may become unstable and our customers may encounter delays or disruptions in their service. Unscheduled downtime could harm our business and also could discourage current and potential customers and reduce future revenues.

Our network infrastructure and computer systems and software may fail.

An unexpected event like a power or telecommunications failure, fire, flood, earthquake, or other catastrophic loss at our Internet service providers’ facilities or at our on-site data facility could cause the loss of critical data and prevent us from offering our products and services. Our business interruption insurance may not adequately compensate us for losses that may occur. In addition, we rely on third parties to securely store our archived data, house our Web server and network systems and connect us to the Internet. While our service providers have planned for certain contingencies, the failure by any of these third parties to provide these services satisfactorily and our inability to find suitable replacements would impair our ability to access archives and operate our systems and software.

We may lose users and lose revenues if our online security measures fail.

If the security measures that we use to protect personal information are ineffective, we may lose users of our services, which could reduce our revenues. We rely on security and authentication technology licensed from third parties. With this technology, we perform real-time credit card authorization and verification. We cannot predict whether these security measures could be circumvented by new technological developments. In addition, our software, databases and servers may be vulnerable to computer viruses, physical or electronic break-ins and similar disruptions. We may need to spend significant resources to protect against security breaches or to alleviate problems caused by any breaches. We cannot assure that we can prevent all security breaches.

Risks Related to Government Regulation, Content and Intellectual Property

Government regulation may require us to change the way we do business.

The laws and regulations that govern our business change rapidly. The United States government and the governments of states and foreign countries have attempted to regulate activities on the Internet. Evolving areas of law that are relevant to our business include privacy law, proposed encryption laws, content regulation and sales and use tax laws and regulations. Because of this rapidly evolving and uncertain regulatory environment, we cannot predict how these laws and regulations might affect our business. In addition, these uncertainties make it difficult to ensure compliance with the laws and regulations governing the Internet. These laws and regulations could harm us by subjecting us to liability or forcing us to change how we do business. See “Business — Government Regulation of the Internet and the Healthcare Industry” for a more complete discussion of these laws and regulations.

13

Any reduction or change in the regulation of continuing education and training in the healthcare industry may adversely affect our business.

Our business model is dependent in part on required training and continuing education for healthcare professionals and other healthcare workers resulting from regulations of state and Federal agencies, state licensing boards and professional organizations. Any change in these regulations that reduce the requirements for continuing education and training for the healthcare industry could harm our business.

In addition, our business with pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers is predicated on our ability to maintain accreditation status with organizations such as the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), American Council for Pharmaceutical Education (ACPE) and others. The failure to maintain status as an accredited provider could result in a detrimental effect on our business.

New regulations may reduce our business activity with pharmaceutical and medical device customers.

In April 2003, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services issued “OIG Compliance Program Guidance for Pharmaceutical Manufacturers.” This guidance identifies three areas of risks for pharmaceutical and medical device companies and recommends certain best practices to be included in a compliance plan designed to avoid the risk of federal healthcare program abuse. The guidance highlighted a number of arrangements that have the potential to trigger fraud and abuse violations, including educational grants. The Company follows the rules and guidelines provided by the ACCME, ANCC and other continuing education accrediting bodies to ensure that its continuing education programming is free from commercial bias and consistent with the OIG guidance. The majority of the Company’s accredited continuing education programming is funded by educational grants from our pharmaceutical and medical device customers. There is no assurance that our pharmaceutical and medical device customers will continue to provide educational grants consistent with past practices. To the extent that our customers curtail or restructure their business practices, it could have a material adverse impact on the Company’s revenues, results of operations, and financial position.

We may be liable to third parties for content that is available from our online library.

We may be liable to third parties for the content in our online library if the text, graphics, software or other content in our library violates copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property rights, our content partners violate their contractual obligations to others by providing content to our library or the content does not conform to accepted standards of care in the healthcare profession. We may also be liable for anything that is accessible from our Web site through links to other Web sites. We attempt to minimize these types of liabilities by requiring representations and warranties relating to our content partners’ ownership of the rights to distribute as well as the accuracy of their content. We also take necessary measures to review this content ourselves. Although our agreements with our content partners contain provisions providing for indemnification by the content providers in the event of inaccurate content, we cannot assure that our content partners will have the financial resources to meet this obligation. Alleged liability could harm our business by damaging our reputation, requiring us to incur legal costs in defense, exposing us to awards of damages and costs and diverting management’s attention away from our business. See “Business - Intellectual Property and Other Proprietary Rights” for a more complete discussion of the potential effects of this liability on our business.

Protection of certain proprietary trademarks and domain names may be difficult and costly.

Despite protection of certain proprietary trademarks and domain names, a third-party could, without authorization, copy or otherwise appropriate our content or other information from our database. Our agreements with employees, consultants and others who participate in development activities could be breached. We may not have adequate remedies for any breach, and our trade secrets may otherwise become known or independently developed by competitors. In addition, the laws of some foreign countries do not protect our proprietary rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States, and effective copyright, trademark and trade secret protection may not be available in those jurisdictions. We currently hold several domain names. The legal status of intellectual property on the Internet is currently subject to various uncertainties. The current system for registering, allocating and managing domain names has been the subject of litigation and proposed regulatory reform. Additionally, legislative proposals have been made by the federal government that would afford broad protection to owners of databases of information, such as stock quotes. This protection of databases already exists in the European Union. There have been substantial amounts of litigation in the computer and online industries regarding intellectual property assets. Third-parties may claim infringement by us with respect to current and future products, trademarks or other proprietary rights, and we may counterclaim against such parties in such actions. Any such claims or counterclaims could be time-consuming, result in costly litigation, divert management’s attention, cause product release delays, require us to redesign our products or require us to enter into royalty or licensing agreements, any of which could have a material adverse effect upon our business, financial condition and operating results. Such royalty and licensing agreements may not be available on terms acceptable to us, if at all.

14

We may be unable to protect our intellectual property, and we may be liable for infringing the intellectual property rights of others.

Our business could be harmed if unauthorized parties infringe upon or misappropriate our proprietary systems, content, services or other information. Our efforts to protect our intellectual property through copyright, trademarks and other controls may not be adequate. In the future, litigation may be necessary to enforce our intellectual property rights or to determine the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others, which could be time consuming and costly. Intellectual property infringement claims could be made against us as the number of our competitors grows. These claims, even if not meritorious, could be expensive and divert our attention from operating our company. In addition, if we become liable to third parties for infringing their intellectual property rights, we could be required to pay a substantial damage award and develop comparable non-infringing intellectual property, to obtain a license or to cease providing the content or services that contain the infringing intellectual property. We may be unable to develop non-infringing intellectual property or obtain a license on commercially reasonable terms, if at all.

Item 2. Properties

Our principal office is located in Nashville, Tennessee. Our lease for approximately 31,000 square feet at this location expires in April 2005. The lease provides for two five-year renewal options. Rent at this location is approximately $24,000 per month through February 2004 and approximately $22,000 per month from March 2004 through April 2005.

We are leasing approximately 8,000 square feet of office space in Denver, Colorado. The lease expires in March 2010 and has monthly rent of approximately $9,000.

We are leasing approximately 6,000 square feet of office space in Dallas, Texas. The lease expires in January 2007 and has monthly rent of approximately $8,000. We are currently subleasing this office space at the rate of approximately $6,000 per month to a third party for the remaining term of the lease.

We are leasing approximately 3,700 square feet of office space in Raleigh, North Carolina. The lease expires in September 2004 and has monthly rent of approximately $4,400 through June 30, 2004 and approximately $4,500 from July 1, 2004 through September 30, 2004.

Item 3. Legal Proceedings

None.

Item 4. Submission of Matters to a Vote of Security Holders

None.

15

PART II

Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity and Related Stockholder Matters

The following table sets forth, for the periods indicated, the high and low sales prices per share of our common stock as reported on the NASDAQ National Market under the ticker symbol HSTM:

On March 8, 2004, there were 218 registered holders and approximately 2,022 beneficial holders of our common stock. Because many of such shares are held by brokers and other institutions on behalf of shareholders, we are unable to estimate the total number of shareholders represented by these record holders.

On February 19, 2004, options to purchase up to 370,000 shares at an exercise price of $2.69 were granted to employees. Options to purchase an additional 40,000 shares at an exercise price of $2.69 were also granted, but are subject to contingencies related to 2004 financial results. These options vest annually over four years and expire eight years after issuance.

DIVIDEND POLICY

We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our common stock, and we do not anticipate paying cash dividends in the foreseeable future. We intend to retain earnings to finance the expansion of our operations.

RECENT SALES OF UNREGISTERED SECURITIES

There have been no sales of unregistered securities since December 31, 2002.

USE OF PROCEEDS

On April 10, 2000 our Registration Statement on Form S-1 (File No. 333-88939) was declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Pursuant to the Registration Statement, we registered and sold 5,275,000 shares of common stock at a price of $9.00 per share. The managing underwriter was FleetBoston Robertson Stephens, Inc. The aggregate price of the amount offered and sold was $47,475,000. In connection with the issuance and distribution of the securities registered, we paid $3,323,250 related to underwriting discounts and commissions and approximately $2,000,000 of other expenses.

The net offering proceeds to the Company after deducting the total expenses noted above were approximately $42,200,000. From the effective date of the Registration Statement through December 31, 2003, we have used approximately $33,200,000 of the net offering proceeds to fund general operating expenses, acquisitions and other working capital needs.

Item 6. Selected Financial Data

The selected statements of operations data for the three-year period ended December 31, 2003 and the balance sheet data as of December 31, 2003 and 2002 are derived from our financial statements that have been audited by Ernst & Young LLP, our independent auditors, and are included elsewhere in this report. You should read the following selected financial data in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and the notes to those statements and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” located elsewhere in this report.

HealthStream acquired seven companies between 2000 and 2001. As a result of these acquisitions, the annual results presented below are not comparable. Revenues may be subject to fluctuations as discussed further in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of

16

Financial Condition and Results of Operations” located elsewhere in this report. During 2002, we adopted SFAS No. 142 “Goodwill and Intangible Assets,” which eliminated the amortization of goodwill and indefinite lived intangible assets. In accordance with the provisions of SFAS No. 142, we recorded a transitional goodwill impairment charge of $5.0 million, in our HCO business unit, as a cumulative effect of a change in accounting principle as of January 1, 2002. As a result of this accounting change, the annual results presented below are not comparable. See Note 6 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for details. The operating results for any single year are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected in the future.