The Internet has changed the traditional way patients interact with their doctors. Today, many self-resilient and enterprising patients are querying their symptoms on internet search engines. Searching knowledge databases with focus on medicine has become a common practice. But soon, the field of medicine is going to change beyond recognition. Your.MD, a new UK startup may be a real threat for all-purpose medical practitioners.
Your.MD was designed to change the way of online self-diagnosis. While the number of people turning on searching for medical conditions and symptoms online, the major flaws in this method are becoming increasingly evident. For many people without training in medicine a cold sore can sometimes be confused with some new and rare form of leprosy. A mole can look like skin cancer.
There are many ways to scare yourself by trying to self-diagnose your symptoms. It is to get worried and lose sleep by such means. Having such widespread access to medical encyclopedias has its uncontested advantages both also comes with its downside. People with little medical knowledge but great access to the available information online may have also little means of skillfully applying it.
For this reason Your.MD comes to fill a growing demand in an innovative new way. The website employs artificial intelligence in its advances diagnosis system able to eliminate unlikely causes of a disease.
The company behind this website claims that their self-diagnosis online system solves many of the flaws common to the old method of using search engines to find online information about your symptoms. For example, in case that many people start reporting symptoms of the seasonal flu in your region, the AI diagnosis system will take this factor into consideration and it is more likely to report that your symptom of fever is due to a flu virus rather than other possibilities. These advanced diagnosis capabilities are great step forward.
Your.MD gathers its data from the National Health Service. This way the software strives to eliminate another major flaw in online self-diagnosis systems, by ensuring the integrity and quality of its medical information. Your.MD can provide a better way to self-diagnosis by eliminating untrustworthy sources of data.
Your.MD is using the Apple Store and Google Play as its distribution network. This allows bypassing government bureaucracy. It is still to see whether or Your.MD will ultimately replace the family doctor or general practitioner.
Meanwhile, it is clear that introduction of AI can significantly improve online self-diagnoses. Your.MD can also provide service in undeveloped regions of the world, where people do not benefit of easy access to health care and doctors. For them, Your.MD might be the only form of diagnosis and for this it deserves recognition and support.
