“Who do you recommend?”- Flashback to 2016

Patients almost always ask us this important question when they need a specialist referral. As a GP trainee at the James Wigg Practice in London, I regularly emailed other GPs in the practice, asking them who they’d recommend. But I soon realised, that it wasn’t just me, or my inexperience at the time – senior GP colleagues did the same, looking for recommendations too. We wanted to ensure our patients received the most appropriate clinical care for their conditions and that they were being directed to trusted 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 to find specialists recommended by doctors locally.

Fast-forward to 2016 and today we are a thriving community of doctors that believe in improving communications in healthcare to achieve clinical excellence.

We meet regularly for educational events and share recommendations to improve our patients’ healthcare journeys. We are passionate about using technology to help improve healthcare. We may be time poor, but we are rich in endeavour for our patients.

So what exactly is myHealthSpecialist.com?

It’s an online resource that allows GPs, and patients, to easily find specialists 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.

myhealthspecialist website

This has never previously been done. 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, with over a million specialist profile views recorded and thousands of patients benefiting and improving their ongoing care. 

This has only been made possible because of the continued dedication of UK GPs, GP registrars and specialists to achieving the best quality of care for patients. By sharing their knowledge of trusted specialists, acquired through many years of training and clinical practice, thousands of patients are benefiting.

We are very proud to be a part of this. We believe UK healthcare is exceptional and want the opportunity to showcase it and make the best clinical care more 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.

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