“5,000 doctors at your fingertips”­– with no waiting room, no copay, anytime, anywhere – for free! It lets people get answers to any health question from thousands of America’s best doctors, at home or on the go, and gives doctors a Virtual Practice, where they answer real patient questions in real time, helping build their reputation, attract new patients and improve the quality of care.

What’s in it for doctors participating in this network? iMedicalApps points out that physicians

participate on HealthTap to better serve existing patients and connect with potential new patients, all whilst demonstrating their expertise and commitment to helping people everywhere. In addition, they can build a social media presence – something many current physicians struggle with, yet is going to be increasingly important to building and maintaining patient panels.

What about the issue of liability? The terms of service clearly state:

While HealthTap Medical Experts do not practice medicine on or through HealthTap, they can be a resource for reliable, relevant general health information.

And:

HealthTap is not a doctor and the use of HealthTap does not create a doctor-patient relationship. HealthTap contains content, and may help you identify services or may offer services. Everything on the Site, including Content accessed or Services provided through HealthTap, are for your information, and should be used for informational purposes only. This means that Content and Services are not a substitute for medical advice from your physician (from the Terms of Use page).

While the concept is appealing, it remains to be seen if HealthTap Express will meet its lofty goals. If physicians want to “build a social media presence,” it is not clear how this app will interact with Facebook, Google+ and other social media sites. And will physicians remain available 24/7 on an ongoing basis without clear financial compensation?

Healthcare consumers (i.e. patients) would do better to bookmark the mobile version of MedlinePlus, and use it to search for information on their condition first, in order to be more fully informed when speaking to a medical professional.

Are you a patient or physician who has tried HealthTap Express? What are your experiences with this app & service? Tell us!

• Need to find a physician? With a few taps you can by physician name, specialty, disease or treatment, or browse by department or specialty.
• Need to locate the nearest clinic? Just tap to search by clinic name, city, or specialty. Nearby pharmacies can be located in a similar manner.
• Have a general health information question? Tap to enter their “Adult Health Library” or “Pediatric Health Library” and browse from several dozen general topic areas – from allergies and asthma to surgery and more.

This site is integrated with smartphone features like one-touch dialing and location mapping tools, and sports the familiar icons for Twitter and Facebook, inviting visitors to become fans of this top-notch healthcare system.

While this site is concise, clean, easy to read and navigate, it faces the same challenges that libraries and other organizations struggle with in this small-screen medium, such as presenting complex information, and labeling and organization.

While it is best for headings to be as concise as possible, being too terse can lead to humorous results. If one taps on the “Health Information” link, the next page is titled “Diseases and Conditions.” The options on this page lead one to observe (tongue-in-cheek) that “Adult Health Library” and “Pediatric Health Library” are each either a disease or a condition.

Browse to the health information topic on bleaching your teeth (Health Information -> Adult Health Library -> Oral Health -> Bleaching), and a table of useful information on who may or may not benefit from this procedure breaks. The headings appear presented in a vertical list while the table’s contents appear in a very narrow, three-column bulleted list.

With the proliferation of mobile devices capable of browsing the web, any organization that wants to stay relevant needs to create user-friendly sites for these visitors.

What do you think? Is this a site you would use? Add your comments and tell us!

What do you think? Would such devices help reduce the number of STIs in developed countries like the UK, USA, and others? What about the risks and impacts of false results, both positive and negative?