- What were your initial thoughts on the service (ease of registering, ease of booking in the appointments, look and feel of the website?)
Registration was easy enough. When I had completed my profile, I then had the opportunity to select from two sets of professionals. I liked that I could read their profiles – however, it would have been nice to be able to select from both the recommended choices – ie two from one group and one from the other. The site did say you could select each professional individually, but I didn't seem able to increase my choice. The other problem I ran into was that one of the professionals from the choice of three I had selected, had no availability until the end of August/early September – and even then availability was fairly restrictive. Because of this, I decided to go with the other choice of professionals; however, in order to do so, I would have had to re-enter all my background information (health, medication, well-being etc) again. As I have quite a long medical history, I really didn’t want to do this. This was resolved by speaking to the Isohealth team and I booked to speak with 2 professionals by 14th August and will book with the third after the trial has finished.
I found the website user-friendly albeit with little choice of professionals I could make appointments with. I booked one of the appointments and the professional’s availability had changed – I quickly received an email referring me back to the site to choose another available appointment time. However, all the appointments were still available on the site, which was slightly confusing – I’m not sure if I could have viewed both at the same time, but when I went and chose a different day/time, the professional contacted me again to say that wasn’t available and to choose one of the times he had previously mentioned (which he again listed). Third time lucky and I managed to book in appointment that was mutually convenient.
- What did you like the most about using this product?
I liked being able to choose the most suitable professionals based on my particular issues/requirements. I also liked that, in both cases, the professionals had already read my notes before the appointment and were still able to give me useful advice. Generally, if you see a different GP or health professional, they haven’t had the time/opportunity to read your notes before you see them and this means that they are frequently not up-to-date with your latest health situation. I also liked the that one professional left feedback as it was helpful to be able to look back and see what was suggested/agreed during the consultation.
- If you could improve one thing in the overall process and service, what would it be?
Better availability of appointments and with more choice of professionals. The Mental Health professional that I chose to have an appointment with is currently on holiday (which is unavoidable). However, appointments only seem to be available on a Saturday anyway – I made both my appointments when there were other people around at home, but in some cases, especially regarding mental health, patients might prefer to make the appointment during the week when children/partners etc are more likely to be out of the house. I understand that for those at work, Saturdays may be more convenient – perhaps it would be possible to add usual appointment times to the general information about each professional.
- What, if anything, surprised you about the experience?
Considering a standard GP or medical health appointment is no longer than 10-15 minutes, the 30 minutes went by extremely quickly. I feel an initial consultation would probably need to be longer than 30 minutes to be more effective.
- On a scale from 1 to 5 (1=not at all likely, 5=very likely), how likely are you to recommend this product to a friend? Please tell us why is that.
I would personally score a 2 because, as I have health issues, I would stick to visiting my GP as I have a good relationship with her and we discuss the way forward together each time. I also know that my GP can refer me to other local services and schemes as necessary. My greatest problem with this service is that I had no idea where the professionals were based in the UK and, as services vary depending on Trust, the professional may recommend something that is not available in the patient’s area.
- Who do you think would benefit the most from isoshealth?
I think Isohealth is great for people who work and find it difficult to make appointments to see medical professionals due to working hours and the distance they live from work. It would be really helpful for people who work to arrange an appointment either for during the evening or at the weekend – it would avoid the need for taking half a day off just for a 10 minute appointment. Also, people at work often feel they are “too busy” to be ill and so persevere at work through different illnesses and problems, whereas they can receive good advice online wherever they are. I therefore think it would be even more useful for people who travel regularly for work. Even if in a different country, they can build a relationship with one particular professional and can book an appointment without worrying if they are going to be travelling on that day – provided they have a laptop, they could just stop the car somewhere safely ahead of an appointment and take 30 minutes out of the day to get professional advice.