An industry contact was recently asked his opinion on Seven Day Doctor. His thoughts and our responses are below:
You asked me for my thoughts on the Seven Day Doctor and here they are.
My initial thought is that it is a very necessary service and I am amazed it is not already available.
My concern is that due to patient confidentiality and the onset of GDPR it might be near impossible to co-ordinate record sharing with the NHS with the GPC.
[SDD response] Currently, the data is input manually by the user and only held on an individual’s device. Obtaining the data automatically from the NHS would be great, but we are not actively pursuing this at the moment.
These organisations are bureaucratic giant sloths and might feel that they should be doing their own equivalent of SDD for themselves. You have conceived the app. but that might soon be out of date if and when the NHS make our records available online, rather like the DVLC has done with driving licenses. How can you get these organisations to work in harmony for us to be able to share the records?
[SDD response] It may well be some time before the NHS (or equivalent in other countries) is able to provide anything like the service that SevenDayDoctor provides.
It might also be worth stating, for investment purposes, why an app, which has to bypass constant phone security wall upgrades from the like of Apple and Samsung, to name just two companies, would be superior to simply carrying the information a doctor would require on a piece of paper?
[SDD response] There are many reasons why SevenDayDoctor is superior to a piece of paper! The majority of people now carry their mobile devices with them, wherever they go. SevenDayDoctor means that they will always have their medical information with them. Their medical data can be easily updated on SevenDayDoctor, and the SevenDayDoctor app also has the ability to send alerts to important contacts in the event of an emergency. A piece of paper does none of these!