Systems and method for evaluating and selecting a healthcare professional

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for evaluating healthcare professionals by assigning each healthcare professional an overall value (Reputation Score) based on a healthcare professional's merits, as well as feedback and endorsement obtained by this healthcare professional from other healthcare professionals or patient users. The Reputation Score gives patients a way to understand each doctor's qualifications, knowledge of medical practices, and the quality of their engagement with patients or other medical professions. The patient users therefore can find and select professionals based on their trusted evaluations. Systems and methods are further provided which utilize information the doctor received from other peer doctors and from patients under many identified topics or area of practice. Such information can be presented together with other content the doctor rendered or other evaluating system to show the doctor's credentials. Systems and methods for soliciting trustworthy answers to health questions in a time fashioned way and for providing virtual consultations between a patient and a healthcare professional are further provided herein.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for evaluating a professional in a computer-implemented professional evaluation system having a plurality of users, comprising:
 a. receiving, by a computer processor hosted at least partially on a server and electronically accessible over at least one network system, profile data for the professional comprising a plurality of attributes data indicative of professional qualification and performance;   b. determining a value for each said attribute, by the computer processor, based on the received profile data;   c. computing and storing, by the computer processor, a raw profile data value, based on the determined value of each attribute in step b;   d. receiving, by the computer processor, feedback data for the professional, said feedback data being received from one or more user computer devices;   e. determining a value for each feedback data, by the computer processor, based on the received feedback data;   f. computing and storing, by the computer processor, a raw feedback data value, based on the determined value of each feedback data in step e;   g. generating, by the computer processor, an overall value for the professional based on the raw profile data value and the raw feedback data value.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the attributes indicative of professional qualification and performance comprise at least one of: education, training, certification, experience, publication, editorial positions, academic appointment, referrals, awards, professional society participation, and hospital affiliation. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein computing the raw feedback data value is further based on the contemporary nature of the feedback data. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the overall value for the professional is generated by converting the raw profile data value to a converted profile data value based on a first segmented linear function, converting the raw feedback data value to a converted feedback data value based on a second segmented linear function, and summing the converted profile data value and the converted feedback data value. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the professional comprises a healthcare professional. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the feedback data comprises data received from a patient user, said feedback data comprising information indicating at least one of: being followed by the patient in a social network, being recommended by the patient, being added by the patient at the patient's healthcare provider, being thanked by the patient for an answer to a health-related question provided by the healthcare professional, sharing an answer provided by the healthcare professional by email, SMS, push notification or on a third party social network, requesting by the patient an appointment with the healthcare professional and providing an indication by the patient that the healthcare professional has knowledge relevant to a particular topic. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the feedback data comprises data received from another healthcare professional, said feedback data comprising information indicating at least one of: sending a message to the healthcare professional, referring the healthcare professional's answer to other users, referring a question posed by other users to the healthcare professional, adding the healthcare professional to said another healthcare provider's own network, agreeing with answers provided by the healthcare professional, and recommending the healthcare professional on the network. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein determining the raw feedback data value comprises giving more weight to feedback data received from other healthcare professionals than to feedback data received from patients. 
     
     
         9 . A professional evaluation system, comprising:
 a professional evaluation application, hosted at least partially on a server and electronically accessible over at least one network system to at least one user computer device, wherein the professional evaluation application is configured to:   compute a raw profile data value for a professional based on received profile data;   compute a raw feedback data value, based on feedback data for the professional received from said one or more user computer device; and   generate an overall value for the professional based on the raw profile data value and the raw feedback data value.   
     
     
         10 . A computer-implemented method for evaluating a healthcare professional, the method comprising:
 a. providing, by the computer processor, categories of topics or practice areas of expertise associated with the healthcare professional;   b. receiving a plurality of votes for the healthcare professional from both credentialed healthcare professional users and patient users, the votes for the healthcare professional being associated with respective topics or practice areas;   c. computing and processing the votes from the credentialed healthcare users and from the patient users separately for each topic or practice area; and   d. presenting the result value of the healthcare professional's votes from credentialed healthcare users and from the patient users separately for each topic or practice area.   
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 10 , further comprising presenting content showing the healthcare professionals' credentials together with voting results. 
     
     
         12 . A healthcare professional evaluation system, comprising:
 a votes processing application, hosted at least partially on a server and electronically accessible over at least one network system to at least one healthcare professional user computer device and at least one patient user computer device, wherein the votes processing module is configured to:
 a. provide categories of topics or practice areas of expertise associated with the healthcare professional; 
 b. receive a plurality of votes for the healthcare professional from the at least one healthcare professional user computer device and the at least one patient user computer device, the votes for the healthcare professional being associated with respective topics or practice areas; 
 c. compute and process the received votes from the healthcare professional users and from the patient users separately for each topic or practice area; and 
 d. present the result value of the healthcare professional's votes received from the healthcare professional users and from the patient users separately for each topic or practice area. 
   
     
     
         13 . A computer-implemented method for providing answers to user-submitted questions, comprising the steps of:
 a. receiving, by a computer processor, a question from a user computer device;   b. storing the question in a queue of unanswered questions, said queue of unanswered questions being arranged in reverse chronological order;   c. delegating the question, based on its queue order, to a professional user having verified credentials related to a subject area of the questions;   d. receiving an answer to the question provided by the professional user via a professional user computer device; and   e. displaying the answer provided by said verified professional user together with the question.   
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 13 , wherein the subject area of the questions comprises health-related information, and the professional user is a healthcare professional. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 13 , further comprising a step of:
 after receiving the question from the user, processing the question and associating it with the topic tags or Group ID to organize the questions based on content.   
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 13 , further comprising a step of presenting users existing similar or related questions in the system before users submit their own questions. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 13 , further comprising delegating the questions exclusively to the qualified healthcare professional with good standing. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 13 , further comprising: providing profile information for professional users to users. 
     
     
         19 . A system for providing answers to user-submitted questions, comprising a memory comprising instructions executable by one or more computer processors coupled to the memory and operable to execute the instructions, the one or more processors being operable when executing the instructions to:
 a. receive, by the one or more computer processors, a question from a user computer device;   b. store the question in a queue of unanswered questions, said queue of unanswered questions being arranged in reverse chronological order;   c. delegate the question, based on its queue order, to a professional user having verified credentials related to a subject area of the questions;   d. receive an answer to the question provided by the professional user via a professional user computer device; and   e. display the answer provided by the verified healthcare professional user together with the question.   
     
     
         20 . A computer-implemented method for facilitating virtual consultations between a patient and a healthcare professional, comprising:
 a. receiving, by a virtual consultation application hosted at least partially on a server, a request to initiate a virtual consultation from a patient using a patient computer device;   b. receiving, by the virtual consultation application, information input by the patient relating to the patient's reason for the consultation;   c. receiving, by the virtual consultation application, attachment information provided from the patient computer device;   d. locating a healthcare professional available to provide a virtual consultation via a healthcare professional computer device accessing the virtual consultation application;   e. providing, by the virtual consultation application, a communications interface for virtual consultation between the patient and the healthcare professional, wherein the communications interface facilitates at least one of: video, audio and chat communications.   
     
     
         21 . A system for virtual healthcare consultations, comprising:
 a virtual consultation application, hosted at least partially on a server and electronically accessible over at least one network system to at least one patient computer device and at least one healthcare professional computer device, wherein the virtual consultation application is configured to:
 a. receive a request to initiate a virtual consultation from a patient using the at least one patient computer device; 
 b. receive information input by the patient relating to the patient's reason for the consultation; 
 c. receive attachment information provided from the patient computer device; 
 d. locate a healthcare professional available to provide a virtual consultation via the at least one healthcare professional computer device accessing the virtual consultation application; and 
 e. provide a communications interface for virtual consultation between the patient and the healthcare professional, wherein the communications interface facilitates at least one of: video, audio and chat communications.