Why do doctors in private practice need an online presence?

Patient-centricity is the latest medical buzzword. Patients are modern consumers, more orientated towards self-service and self-help strategies. Statistics indicate that they increasingly rely on the internet for medical advice and are becoming more empowered to actively engage in how they would like to be treated. This puts more pressure on doctors in private practice.

Improved doctor-patient communication and patient education have never been so important as now, processes that all consume the doctor's time. To manage their time more effectively, but also meet these expectations, doctors need to adopt more forward-thinking methods of steering their work-flow toward greater levels of strategic efficiency.

Why is the quality of an online presence relevant?

The quality of doctor-patient interaction governs several outcomes, including patient satisfaction, compliance and the pervasiveness of malpractice litigation. All these factors are determined by one key concept - your ability to effectively communicate, connect and transfer information to your patients. With your own personalised MedSquirrel website, you can now, for the first time, economise on time by steering your work-flow towards greater levels of efficiency by delegating patient education to your own website. In addition, you also obtain a useful, modern and cutting-edge digital presence to satisfy the needs of modern patients.

Why does a MedSquirrel website offer superior value to a doctor?

Your personally branded MedSquirrel website is linked to a shared knowledge, collective intelligence digital platform that contains a large volume of peer-reviewed medical information and illustrations. Through enhanced functionality, capability and the provision of choice, a MedSquirrel website offers modern patients seeking healthcare information significantly more value than what a standard, static doctor's website can achieve.

Why can the content on a personalised MedSquirrel website be trusted?

Since your colleagues, often belonging to different specialities, also make use of the same central digital platform to save time and steer their own workflow toward greater efficiency, the collective content continuously gets updated, improved and expanded through this united input and effort. Communal scrutiny also safeguards the quality of information through peer-review and self-interest. The net result of collaboration between doctors automatically ensures that your website will just keep on getting better without costing you money, time or effort.

What are the benefits of “getting on the same page as your patient”?

Once a MedSquirrel website has been activated, you can start outsourcing the time-consuming responsibility of patient education to yourself, but with a difference. For a change, you are not personally responsible for doing all the talking. Let your website take care of it for you!

• As you explain complicated medical topics, demonstrate it with graphics - this makes it far easier to communicate as doctor and understand as patient
• As you educate your patients, refer them to a trusted knowledge resource, your own website, to help them gain more insight about their conditions at their own pace and convenience
• As you start running late, economise on time by outsourcing and delegating patient education to your website – this avoids patients from feeling rushed, coerced or patronised by you attempting to maintain your pace and prevent the next patient from getting irritated by having to wait for you

Why does a MedSquirrel website provide a one-stop-shop solution?

Besides complying with your patient's unique online requirements, do you really feel like spending a lot of time on other websites finding medical information for yourself?

As doctors, we didn't. That's why we created an ability to store, collate and access information in one spot - YOUR OWN MedSquirrel website!

We believe that collaboration offers more value than competition

MedSquirrel is a shared knowledge, collective intelligence digital platform developed to share medical expertise between doctors and patients. We support collaboration, as opposed to competition, between all members of the healthcare profession and are striving towards the provision of peer reviewed, accurate and simplified medical information to assist our patients. If you are a medical doctor, please share your experience, insights and unique communication style with a wider audience by contributing to our digital platform. Your contribution will be credited to you and your name, practice and field of interest will be made visible to the world. Remember that the exposure of your brand to colleagues and patients helps you build your reputation and practice by allowing the right kind of patient to find you in cyberspace.