Ask The Doctor is a medical information website that was founded in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. The platform was co-founded by Dr. Patrick A. Golden,

Dikembe Mutombo Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo (born June 25, 1966) is a Congolese-American former professional basketball player. Mutombo played 18 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Outside basketball, he has becom ...

Israel Idonije Israel Idonije (born November 17, 1980) is a retired Nigerian-Canadian defensive end in the National Football League and actor. Idonije was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Cleveland Browns out of the University of Manitoba. A draft pi ...

, Q Dhalla and Prakash Chand.

History

Ask The Doctor was founded in 2014 as an online platform. During an interview in 2011 with

Omni News Omni News (styled as OMNI News) is the name of local and national newscasts in various languages on the Omni Television system in Canada. National Omni Television produces daily newscasts in Italian, Punjabi, Arabic, Filipino, Cantonese, and Man ...

, the company founder stated that the majority of its patients were from the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. He also stated that the website had been used in over 100 different countries up to that point in the company's history. In 2012, it was announced that Ask The Doctor would be partnering with the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

. As part of the partnership, Ask The Doctor's database of questions could be integrated with an

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

database in order to act like a

doctor Doctor or The Doctor may refer to: Personal titles * Doctor (title), the holder of an accredited academic degree * A medical practitioner, including: ** Physician ** Surgeon ** Dentist ** Veterinary physician ** Optometrist *Other roles ** ...

's assistant. Researchers at the

announced that they were piloting a scheme using over 200,000 questions and answers from Ask The Doctor. The

also contacted IBM regarding using the

Watson computer IBM Watson is a question-answering computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language, developed in IBM's DeepQA project by a research team led by principal investigator David Ferrucci. Watson was named after IBM's founde ...

to test the questions.

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

also announced they would be assisting with the research project. Ask The Doctor received recognition in the medical sector following the

May 2015 Nepal earthquake A major earthquake occurred in Nepal on 12 May 2015 at 12:50 pm local time (07:05 UTC) with a moment magnitude of 7.3, southeast of Kodari. The epicenter was on the border of Dolakha and Sindhupalchowk, two districts of Nepal. This earth ...

. It gave the people of

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...

the opportunity to have free advice for a 2-month period following the

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...

. It was stated that shortly after the

that over 3,000 people from

had used the service. In early October 2015, the company announced that it would be acquiring the largest

n medical resource, Sehat. The Sehat platform was to be integrated into the Ask The Doctor group as a

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a s ...

of HealthBrands and to operate solely in

. Sehat would also be collaborating with the

Indian Government The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the Government, national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy lo ...

's initiative called Digital India initiative, which aims to digitalize various areas of information for the

n people. A month later the company also acquired the British patient platform, Patients Connected. Ask The Doctor then announced they planned to utilize the

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

-based offices, while also opening new offices in

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

and

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

during the coming year.

Service

Ask The Doctor is a resource that aims to provide the reader with the answer to any

health Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organiza ...

-related question the user might have. The service is provided at a small charge to the client. There are other services on the market such as

WebMD WebMD is an American corporation known primarily as an online publisher of news and information pertaining to human health and well-being. The site includes information pertaining to drugs. It is one of the top healthcare websites. It was foun ...

that differ from Ask The Doctor, as they produce general medical content, rather than connecting the patient directly with a doctor for real-time advice. After expanding to

and receiving regular patients from the region, the

Mumbai Mirror The ''Mumbai Mirror'' is an Indian English-language newspaper published in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Launched in 2005 as a compact daily newspaper, its coverage focuses on city specific local news and civic issues concerning education, healthcare an ...

reviewed the service provided by Ask The Doctor. The review gave the website 5/5 for its functionality and use. In a 2011 interview, the company founder stated the majority of the patients that were using the website, were people with limited access to quality healthcare. He stated that this could range from teenage girls talking about pregnancy, to people who were unable to see specialists due to the costs involved. In 2016, Ask The Doctor became the world's first health care platform to accept

bitcoin Bitcoin ( abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distr ...

from users. In an interview with the

Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...

, the company founders said that the reason for accepting bitcoin was the extra layer of anonymity it provides users who are sharing very sensitive medical information.

References

{{reflist, 2 Canadian medical websites Internet properties established in 2005