'Instagram for doctors' to be
launched in Europe
By Zoe KleinmanTechnology reporter, BBC News
An app which enables healthcare
professionals to share photos is to be rolled out across western Europe by the
end of the year.
The app was
designed to enable doctors to share pictures of their patients, both with each
other and with medical students. So far, more than 150,000 doctors have
uploaded case photos with the patient's identity obscured. However, some
experts have expressed concern about patient confidentiality. Patients' faces
are automatically obscured by the app but users must manually block identifying
marks like tattoos. Each photo is reviewed by moderators before it is added to
the database.
No secrets
Founder Dr Josh Landy told the BBC
that the Figure 1 service did not access any patient records.
"We do not possess any
personal medical data at all. The best way to keep a secret is not to have it.
We are not an organisation that delivers healthcare," he told the BBC.
But doctors must provide identifying
credentials and are also advised to notify their employees and patients to find
out about consent policies.
"Legally, we found that
identifying the doctor does not identify the patient," said Dr Landy.
"However some [medical]
conditions are so rare that they can't be posted. One user wanted to post
something but there are only seven cases of it in the US and they had all been
reportable because they are rare, so the patient could have been
identified."
Anybody can download the app for
free, but only verified healthcare professionals can upload photos or comment
on them, he added.
'Colourful'
"We reject sensationalistic
images," said Dr Landy.
"Everything is there for
educational purposes. That said, there are very colourful images - things
medics see every day. It's a transparent view into a world you rarely get to
see."
The app is already available in
North America, the UK and Ireland.
While digital services such as
UpToDate and DynaMed - both requiring a subscription - are already widely used
within the healthcare community as clinical knowledge databases, they are not
rivals to Figure 1, said Dr Landy.
"UpToDate is an app I love, and have used for years. However, they
have a highly curated repository of articles written and edited by experts in
the field.
"What our app does is provide
the opportunity to contribute any case no matter how classic or unusual. Ours
is all image-based and totally crowdsourced."
The app has received $6m (£3.75m)
in investment in the last year.
British GP and author Dr Ellie
Cannon gave it a cautious welcome.
"I think it's potentially
really useful to share photos with medical students and other doctors,"
she said.
"Obviously the potential
pitfall is the confidentiality. Of course, they are anonymised but even
uploading from a certain doctor may go some way to identify a patient,"
she added.
"And can a patient later opt
out? We've seen with other sites the downsides of sharing too much."
7 October 2014 Last
updated at 15:
Direct sentence
"We do not possess any personal medical data at
all. The best way to keep a secret is not to have it. We are not an
organisation that delivers healthcare," he told the BBC.
"Obviously the potential pitfall is the
confidentiality. Of course, they are anonymised but even uploading from a
certain doctor may go some way to identify a patient," she added.
