Online Peer-to-Peer Collaboration Among Physicians Improves Patient Outcomes

NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- WorldOne, the global leader in healthcare data collection, insights and intelligence, announced today that its virtual peer-to-peer collaboration tools have helped medical experts improve patient care in a variety of clinical settings, from remote independent practices to large urban academic hospitals. Using iConsult, a web and mobile application developed specifically for virtual patient consults, physicians on Sermo, WorldOne's leading online collaboration platform, can suggest diagnoses and treatments to their colleagues in real-time.

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The majority of iConsult cases receive at least one response within 3 minutes of posting. To date, Sermo community members have helped their colleagues solve thousands of cases across dozens of therapeutic areas. Due to timeliness and accuracy of responses, iConsult has decreased the likelihood of complication and improved recovery.

WorldOne attributes the success of iConsult to several key components, including:

• Online community of experts: Sermo is the leading physician community in the U.S. Participation in the community differs from participation on an online social network because Sermo members have a strong sense of accountability to their peers, motivated by the shared goal of improving global healthcare.
• Fully verified participants: All Sermo members are verified as licensed physicians via a best-in-class authentication process.
• Cross-specialty expertise: Many medical conditions are complex, requiring multidisciplinary interaction for proper evaluation and treatment. Sermo enables collaboration across 68 medical specialties, with perspectives from a number of these specialties often represented in any given iConsult.
• Consultation tool, not Class II device: iConsult is a medium facilitating the exchange of relevant information related to a medical condition, not a diagnostic device that provides data via a one-way communication channel, which cannot be questioned or consulted. Further, iConsult does not require federal regulation.
• Universal access: iConsult is available to all verified members regardless of location or technology platform.

"iConsult has demonstrated its value to physicians as a supplemental resource at the patient's bedside," said Jon Michaeli, senior vice president, Global Community and Marketing for WorldOne. "In our country's medical meccas, it's proven to be a viable low-cost triaging tool as a precursor to more expensive urgent care, and in many cases it's the most reliable time-critical option for a rural independent practitioner where specialists may not be readily accessible. We look forward to advancing iConsult further given this tremendous market validation."

"iConsult is a critical tool for medical communications because it offers a real-time, nationwide, physician-to-physician contact that produces substantive conversations about real issues," said Richard Armstrong, M.D., Fellow, American College of Surgeons, at Helen Newberry Joy Hospital in Newberry, Michigan. "My practice is very isolated, so I take great solace in knowing that I can enrich the medical advice I offer to patients through the expert-sourcing made possible with this technology."

"Even for me, someone who has easy access to specialists, the platform teaches me something new each day," noted Steven Flynn, M.D., Ph.D., Service Chief of Ophthalmology at EA Conway Hospital. "This is a technology that delivers beyond expectations in that it allows physicians to learn from each other in ways we weren't able to in the past. In my experience, an hour on the platform can be more informative to my clinical practice than an hour spent reading the primary medical literature, because it allows for the sharing of clinical information in such a streamlined, feedback-driven manner."

About WorldOne
WorldOne is the global leader in healthcare data collection, insights and intelligence. Headquartered in New York with 18 regional offices across North America, South America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, WorldOne brings online and offline access to medical professionals through a range of differentiated products and services. In July 2012, WorldOne acquired Sermo, the largest online physician community in the United States, to provide an expanded platform for its Global Networked Community comprising over 1.8 million healthcare professionals spanning 80 countries, including more than 385,000 US physicians. For more information visit: http://www.worldone.com.

SOURCE WorldOne