'Platform for doctors to market their services locally and globally'

A Thai-based healthcare consultant has created a new website that amounts to a shopping site for people wanting to find the best doctors for medical and surgical procedures.

The site - www.medeguide.com - currently provides a database of 3,000 doctors and medical specialists working in 50 hospitals in 10 countries. By the end of this year, it is expected to contain details of about 10,000 doctors operating in 100 hospitals in 15 countries.

The founder of the website is healthcare consultant Ruben Toral, formerly marketing director for Bangkok's Bumrungrad International Hospital. Toral is widely credited with pioneering medical tourism in Asia and positioning Bumrungrad as one of the world's leading medical tourism destinations.

He said his decision to create the website was based on the expectation that Asia would become a future centre for healthcare services.

"It is unique in that it is the first website of its kind launched in Thailand, that is designed to assist English-speaking expats in Bangkok and all over Thailand, Asia and Latin America, to find top quality physicians in their area," he said.

The website provides a communication platform to enable patients to search, find and connect with the right doctors. It also aims to help doctors to "be visible" online.

He said that searching online for information about medical and healthcare services was currently a popular pursuit, but not many doctors were visible online. The website will give doctors an online presence that will be visible and accessible by patients.

"The website is a great tool for patients and other interested people to search for doctors by specialty, hospital, country or procedure. It is also a platform for doctors to market their services locally and globally," Toral said.

Currently, the website features some major Thai hospitals, including Vejthani Hospital, Bangkok Hospital, Bumrungrad International and Samitivej Hospital. More are being added. As well as top local doctors at leading hospitals in Thailand and around the world, the website offers updated health news, articles, doctor profiles and interviews.

"Patients and their families no longer need to visit various websites to find doctors. The beauty of our service is that it offers a one-stop search for doctors and medical procedures," Toral said.

Already, www.medeguide.com receives 2,000 unique visitors, resulting in an average of 50 transactions per day. Most of the transactions involve making appointments with doctors, asking questions and finding recommended doctors.

Users of the website do so free of charge, but they have to register as members.

Toral said the website had contacted international hospitals and medical associations in many countries to acquire databases of doctors. It also contacts individual doctors directly. They have to pay a listing fee to the website.

The website also provides an online medical and healthcare magazine that helps to generate revenue from advertising.

"Sixty per cent of our users are local patients looking for local doctors [in the same country] and 40 per cent are international patients looking for second opinions from international doctors working in international hospitals," Toral said.

He said the website was not developed and created as a tool for medical tourism. Rather, it is a tool with which patents can find the right doctors. It supports medical tourism, but it is not built around medical tourism.

Toral said that in a next phase, the website will offer online medical-consultancy services with the provision of a second opinion. This service will be charged to patients.

"Online medical consultancy will help international patients to gain access to international doctors, to ask for consultations about medical treatment without the need for travel. This will help them to save on travelling costs as well," he said.