Looking for answers to your medical questions online? A new startup aims to be your one-stop shop for health queries, with a free service that provides answers to your questions from physicians whose credentials the company claims to vet.
Californian-based startup HealthTap announced on Tuesday that the company secured $11.5 million funding from venture capitalists -- money it says it aims to pour directly into building up its community of physicians and patients and gathering as much medical knowledge as possible.
For patients, HealthTap taps into the brainpower of more than 6,000 US licensed physicians and 500 health care institutions, all of whom have gone through a background check with the company.
Users looking for answers to their health concerns can go online or use a free smartphone app called HealthTap Express. Type in your question and you'll receive a response from several physicians.
What's in it for physicians? HealthTap aims to attract doctors by implementing a system by which physicians can build "reputation points" when users hit an "agree" button to their responses. The hope is that doctors will be incentivized to build a social media network that can reach out and bring in new patients, or help build a virtual practice.
"The goal is to transform healthcare in this country," Ron Gutman, chief executive of HealthTap, told website Gizmag. "People who use the internet for health information find it useless because they don't trust it." The company also added that health is one of the biggest categories on the Internet, with Google alone servicing some 1.2 billion health searches a month. "We founded HealthTap to make finding useful, reliable health information fast, easy and free," the company website states.
Another similar site is Askthedoctor.com, which launched in Canada in 2006. This site also offers a free service through which certified physicians in both the US and Canada respond to users' questions about their health and well-being. So far the site claims to have answered some 10,000 questions via email to users, all for free.
