The computer coupled with Internet seems to be the way to find solutions to absolutely anything. People have got Online to solve any kind of problem, right from finding the most amazing restaurant to the best in terms of shopping. Thanks to the You-tube becoming a rage and the How to videos that answer to any mystery in the world being just a click away, provided of course you have a reliable connection.The internet has now become the one place you want to go for any kind of answer, thank heavens the spiritually inclined still believe in Gurus, though online meditation classes are also now a Hit.
With so much in place or that is what we think! And then a sudden call by a close friend, who was quite hassled as he had now taken his ailing mother to a number of Doctors with absolutely no improvement in her health. All the tests hardly showed any problem. The only issue she had was she always felt exhausted and had a history of migraines. Her sugar at times would drop, causing severe dizziness and weakness.
As much as the symptoms looked simple enough to diagnose, the Doctors only ended up confusing my friend and his Mom. While I am not a Doctor, I patiently heard everything he had to say and had absolutely no solution to give him. I wondered if the Internet could help. After all people could build a rocket using the information from the internet, why could I not just solve a simple health issue?
So it started with me using Google the standard browser. With all its credibility and true to its worth within a few seconds of typing the few key words, lots of opinions began to appear. Right from links that said this could be the beginning of some terrible disease, to the fact that this was not a disease after all. As much as I appreciate a good search engine, this was crazy and more confusing. It is ok to have 4 opinions to a particular restaurant, when you want to have a good meal. But when it is health related, to have 4 different opinions can drive you totally crazy. Fortunately for me, I was searching this information for another person and not for me, otherwise I would be a sure candidate for Psychiatric help. Anyways, while I filtered the different search options with almost an expert rejection algorithm, I finally reached a couple of options that looked sane. I was not sure of the credibility but at least I had some answers that could remotely help.
And I wondered why should something like health care not have a good guidance system online. Something that is not commercial, something that truly wants to help people meet the right doctors.In this world of super specialization, even Doctors are confused about which specialty to approach. With this in mind I searched the Net again, this time with a more focused objective and what I found was disturbing. All the entities that even remotely catered to health care were totally commercial, either linked to hospitals or agencies. Some booked Doctor appointments from a random database like Just Dial, that vomits and spews hundreds of options.
This was it! With the experience my wife had working in healthcare and our passion to work and help people, we decided to have an unbiased online Guide in healthcare.
This would help people irrespective of their financial background, get advice from the best so that at least they could decide on the best course of action. Hence, we created Hospital Guide a forum that was totally free for all. And had no commercial or any other type of tie ups with any health care institution. This would help us make unbiased decisions to help as many people with respect to health issues.
While we thought of how this NON Business model would make sense? Why would any Doctor want to be a part of a movement that had no commercial interest for him? Why would people want to spread the word?
Today, 4 years later we have over 700 Doctors on our database from across the country (obvious that they are here for the cause). We at Hospital Guide Foundation (HGF) believe that the best of healthcare advice should be accessible to all, irrespective of economic background or financial status. Over 50,000 members on the Facebook forum and a website that has regular queries with the top Doctors of the country helping us out. I think my country surprised me,as we continue in this endeavor to focus on the best of health for all.
Currently, Hospital Guide Foundation has been helping people in Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi with some instances in Assam as well..