Health Care Trends With a Social Media Twist

A Doctor On The Go

I don’t know about you, but I have a tendency to get sick when I travel. Growing up, I was always that kid who was perfectly healthy until I arrived at my destination – with a sore throat, runny nose and temperature (just in time for the beach!) While getting an ear infection or strep throat at home is no big deal (read: no school day), mild sicknesses can turn into major headaches when you’re hundreds of miles away from your personal box of tissues.

Earlier this month, Vitals launched an iPhone application for people just like me – people who need help finding a great doctor while they’re away from home. Vitals offers a database of more than 870,000 doctors throughout the United States, so there’s bound to be someone close by - whether you're hiking the Appalachian Trail or driving across the Seven Mile Bridge. If your condition is a bit more serious, and requires advanced care, Vitals enables you to search for doctors that specialize in treating your particular symptoms and honor your insurance plans. Additional search options include doctors' educational background, board certification and gender as well as the ability to store images of multiple health insurance cards and to add doctors’ info in your iPhone contact list.

Given that the app is completely free, and that it has received 4.5 stars on iTunes, I think that it would be silly not to download it. After all, you never know where you’ll be the next time that you come down with conjunctivitis.