Since recently relocating to North Carolina, my time has basically been spent finding essential locations (grocery, shopping malls, Blockbuster, etc.). Between all the personal items that need to be addressed after making a move, we get a new list of items to take care of when we start the new job: benefits. Now I don’t know about you, but one of the main items related to your benefits is the medical care. Who will you go to when you are sick, injured or need a regular check up? What are the OB/GYN professionals in my area that can help me through this pregnancy? Is there are a good pediatrician in the area to take care of Junior?
These are all questions that get asked when thinking about our medical care and even more so when you are starting from scratch to find answers, like yours truly. So recently I came across something that might not only help me but many others in the search for compatible and great doctors. Vitals.com is a new service that allows you to not only search for doctors in your area, but also to rate and review them.
As you can see from the home page, you are given pretty much three choices on where to go from there:
- Check up on your (existing) doctor;
- Find a doctor;
- Figuring out what TYPE of doctor to find based on your physical ailments (NOTE: it is not telling you what your medical condition is, but helping to clarify what type of doctor to look for to treat it)
I was pretty happy to see that there were quite a few options for doctors based on your gender and what parts of the body are troubling you. So with that added feature, this definitely isn’t a one time search resource. There are other aspects of the search process that I am hoping to explore more of on the Vitals website. One thing that I think is important and probably beneficial for the site is that they are looking to create a community – you can even sign up to be notified of when you can become a Vitals community member!
Lastly, and this is the part that really hooked me into checking it out, there is a free eBook on the whole process of finding a doctor and what many people should look for when doing their research. The ebook helps readers figure out things like what kind of doctor should you be looking for, what are quality measures, what questions are important to ask when looking for a doctor and a dictionary of different doctors and what they specialize in (like “What is an Otolaryngologist and what do they do?”). You can get the eBook by going to www.vitals.com/ebook, and there is also a link to it from the main Vitals.com homepage.
Pulse + Signal may have the opportunity to interview Mitch Rothschild, the CEO of Vitals.com – would you be interested in asking any questions to him about the site or about the search for a doctor? Go ahead and leave the questions/comments in the comments field!
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I had a presenter in December at the NY Healthcare Technology Meetup – Dan Kogan. In my opinion he has it all – a very detailed doctor search and a pretty impressive health-focused social network.
http://healthworldweb.com/
Thanks for checking it out Suki! Definitely looking forward to the questions!
Nice write up, Andre. I had heard about the site…currently on my list of sites to check out but since you beat me to it…I expect I shall now have to check it out so I can send you some questions to ask in the interview.
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