Social Network for Physicians to Share Medical Information
Ken Wallace, MD, a Diplomate of the American Board of Physician Specialties® (ABPS), has co-founded the Notebook of Medicine, a social networking app for doctors. The goal of this medical app is to make the world a healthier place by allowing doctors to share health care information without being limited by traditional boundaries. Dr. Wallace says the app enables physicians from around the world to help each other provide timely and quality care for patients by sharing notes and getting second opinions from other doctors.
Dr. Wallace believes the app fills a vital need for a usable and updated medical reference. For many years, he says, he had been frustrated by how medical information was presented in texts or in lectures. He found it either repetitive, or delivered with the presenter’s idiosyncratic spin, and, as it is with medical school notes, he had a hard time keeping all the information together. So he spent 10 years working to create his own notebook of sorts – the Notebook of Medicine.
In the United States, about 12 million patients are misdiagnosed every year, according to Dr. Wallace. In other countries, that number is alarmingly higher. Sharing information on the app can help to fix that, he says.
The Notebook of Medicine provides doctors with a searchable database of 4.5 million clinical, diagnostic, and treatment records of almost every disease known to medicine. Logically arranged using a patent pending system, these records contain notes, images, and videos shared by doctors around the world. Currently, the database has more than 36,268 clinical and pathological images on various diseases, and that number continues to rise.
Doctors can keep the information they obtain from the Notebook app as a private reference or they can share it with other doctors. Of course, if shared, it’s done in full compliance with HIPAA standards.
Doctors can use the Notebook of Medicine in a variety of ways. A doctor can follow other doctors and receive notifications when they post. For example, a doctor working in a remote region of Africa can follow a renowned heart surgeon in the U.S. for any helpful medical information. This information could be notes and opinions about treatment options, or even a video or images of the surgeon performing a procedure. A doctor can also use the app to follow information about a disease or organ and receive a notification when someone posts information – in the form of notes, images or video – about that disease or organ. Doctors can also use the app to ask other physicians for their medical opinions, so a physician who is uncertain about a patient’s symptoms can share images or video when asking another doctor for a second opinion.
As doctors post information, other docs may review and rate it. Doctors who share quality content will be recognized as experts in that area, thus acquiring more followers, and potentially improving the quality of health care worldwide through the spread of medical knowledge.
Every human deserves quality health care regardless of where they’re born or whether they’re rich or poor, Dr. Wallace says, and the Notebook of Medicine helps to teach other physicians to become better physicians. “We share because we care,” he says.
By recognizing a shortcoming in today’s healthcare system and creating a medical app as a practical solution, Dr. Wallace exemplifies the commitment of ABPS Diplomates to providing the highest level of patient care possible. Contact the ABPS to learn more about how physician board certification through one of our Member Boards promotes the fellowship of practitioners who share best practice techniques. The ABPS is the multispecialty certifying body of the American Association of Physician Specialists, Inc.®