Sermo, the Facebook for doctors has expanded into the UK market. The service was launched in 2006 and allows medical practitioners to join and share anonymously. The service currently has over 305,000 users in the US alone and this number is set to grow with increased interest in this service.
In an interview with CNBC, Sermo CEO said doctors can now speak more straight and frankly and in some cases, they have even gone ahead to admit mistakes during medical procedures. I guess the idea here would be for doctors to share their experiences and learn from others who may have been successful at different procedures. Over the last year, 3,500 challenging patient cases were posted by doctors on Sermo. These cases were viewed 700,000 times and received 50,000 comments, the social network claims.
So far the network hasn’t reported any data breaches yet but the fact that you have to enter your email by itself may one pose a threat to the anonymity itself if there were to be a serious breach at some point. “Confessions” by doctors can then be exposed.
Google tested a service last year but its own is for people searching for medically related items to have access to practitioners. let me add that there are other social platforms where medical practitioners network like SharePractice which allows doctors to crowd source answers to medical problems and Doximity which is a professional network, sort of like a LinkedIn for doctors.
Paul Balo is the founder of TechBooky and a highly skilled wireless communications professional with a strong background in cloud computing, offering extensive experience in designing, implementing, and managing wireless communication systems.
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