Isabel Healthcare Blog

With the rise in Internet use over the past decade or so, health information is now at people’s fingertips and symptom checkers are becoming a part of everyday life. Pew Research Center state that one third of United States citizens have gone online to research their symptoms and try and figure out what their symptoms are.  Interestingly they also found that 77% of online health seekers began their search using a search engine such as Google or Bing.  Another 13% said they started at a site that specializes in health care information like Isabel or WebMD.

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Topics: symptom checkers

In recent years there has been much talk about waiting times in Emergency Rooms and Accident and Emergency. In the US, changes in the way healthcare is paid for means most hospitals do not want lots of people showing up inappropriately, and in the UK, there has been a 2.7% admission increase since last year. More patients and less staff means it’s extremely important to know where you can go to get the most appropriate help. The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) have even launched a campaign whyaande.nhs.uk to try and educate people on the different options available, and when each one is the best decision. The main categories the NHS offer are:

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Topics: symptom checkers, triage, emergency

The UK version of the US Choosing Wisely campaign was launched this week. The aim of the campaign is to reduce wasteful medical practices. The campaign was launched by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges which published an accompanying briefing document. An article in the BMJ was published to coincide with the launch.

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Topics: symptom checkers, NHS

There is increasing coverage and discussion in the press about the empowered consumer and all the tools that are now available for people to use to help be empowered. The symptom checker is one of the key tools that consumers should use as it helps make sense of all the data such as symptoms, abnormal test results or abnormal readings from the various monitors that are now available.

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Topics: symptom checker, symptoms, symptom checkers

Topics: symptom checker, symptom checkers, patient engagement, diagnostic decision support

Topics: symptom checker, symptom checkers, online health information