Patients almost always ask us this important question when they need a specialist referral. Many years ago, as a GP trainee at the James Wigg Practice in London, I found myself regularly emailing other GPs in the practice, asking them who they’d recommend. I soon realised, that it wasn’t just me, or my inexperience at the time – senior GP colleagues did the same, looking for recommendations from their trusted colleagues too. We wanted to ensure our patients received the most appropriate clinical care for their conditions and that they were being directed to the best specialists.
This inevitably resulted in a lot of email traffic and time inefficiencies. It sparked the idea of aggregating our recommendations into a single database to save time in consultations and improve patient care. The concept behind myHealthSpecialist.com was born and together with some enthusiastic NHS GP colleagues and some IT-savvy friends we created a novel, free-to-search technology that allowed us, and our patients to find specialists recommended by doctors.
Fast-forward to today and we are a thriving community of doctors that believe in improving transparency and communications in healthcare to achieve clinical excellence.
We share recommendations to improve our patients’ healthcare journeys. We are passionate about using technology to help improve healthcare and although we may be time poor, we are rich in our endeavours for our patients.
So what exactly is myHealthSpecialist.com?
It’s an online resource that allows GPs, and patients, to easily find specialists that are recommended by doctors. It brings together thousands of recommendations from doctors, so we can now make quick, informed decisions about who we refer our patients to within the time constraints of a consultation. Patients can freely, and directly search for specialists on the platform too.
myHealthSpecialist.com is now the largest collection of doctors’ recommendations in the UK. Since the project beta-launched in 2013, thousands of recommendations have been shared, resulting in patients benefiting from this knowledge in order to improve their ongoing care.
This has only been made possible because of the continued dedication of UK GPs, GP registrars and specialists striving to achieve the best quality of care for patients through the sharing of their knowledge of trusted specialists.
We are very proud to continue to be a part of this vision. We believe UK healthcare is exceptional and we welcome the opportunity to showcase the skills and expertise of our trusted specialists in order to make the best clinical care more transparent and accessible.
The shroud that envelops a person and their loved ones when illness occurs can be overwhelming. If you have experienced it yourself, or through your loved ones, you can truly understand the emotions and stresses it generates.
If, by collecting and sharing doctors’ recommendations, we can help just one more person find the right clinician to help, then together we will have made a significant difference.”