An App That Saved 10,000 Lives
By AMY O'LEARY OCTOBER 5, 2013
While most start-ups feverishly track figures like the total number of users, Ron Gutman, the founder and chief executive of the health information start-up, HealthTap, is more interested in a different data point.
This week, the start-up heard from its 10,000th user who said the site saved her life.
"My local doctor brushed me off and told me it was anxiety without doing any tests at all," wrote one woman who turned to HealthTap after seeing her doctor. After spending two hours on HealthTap, she was told by a doctor who contributes to the site that her condition sounded like a blocked artery. She soon saw a cardiology specialist who later inserted a coronary stent.
Since its founding in 2012, the site has logged nearly a billion questions and answers, from simple queries about headaches or the flu, to more complicated ones, like whether mechlorethamine is a cancer medication. Questions are then routed to a physician who is both an expert in that particular field of medicine, and who is determined by an algorithm to be likely to respond fast, Mr. Gutman said.
None of that would be possible without the participation of nearly
50,000 doctors who contribute their advice free. (Every page on the site has a disclaimer saying that the site "does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.")..