DrChrono Blog

I started CrowdMed in 2012 to harness “the wisdom of crowds” to solve even the world’s most difficult medical cases online. This mission is near to my heart, because my own sister spent 3 years with a chronic, undiagnosed medical condition that nearly killed her. I saw first-hand the inadequacies that exist in today’s medical system when it comes to helping patients with undiagnosed, misdiagnosed, or underdiagnosed medical conditions.  

It’s not the fault of doctors — they’re doing the best that they can within the constraints that the medical system places upon them. It’s the fault of the medical system itself.

Physicians, especially those in primary care, are under enormous time pressures, and can now afford to spend only 13 to 16 minutes per patient visit. That’s barely enough time for a routine physical, much less delve into the intricacies of complex medical case. So any medical condition that can’t be quickly resolved results in a referral to a specialist, who is also under enormous time pressures, and further can only diagnose and treat within their own narrow specialty.

This leaves many patients with complex illnesses spending years bouncing from specialist to specialist, desperately seeking a correct diagnosis and cure, and there’s nothing that anyone could do about it — until now.

We developed CrowdMed as a place for physicians to securely refer patients who have exhausted all other options, while maintaining a close relationship with the patient and keeping a close eye on their case.

On CrowdMed, the patient posts their case by anonymously answering a comprehensive set of medical questions, uploading relevant images and diagnostic test results, and selecting a subscription package. Then CrowdMed’s community of over 15,000 registered Medical Detectives may select and collaborate on solving it using chat, discussion, and suggestion features, while a patented prediction market technology accurately identifies the most probable diagnoses and solutions.

Using this innovative crowdsourcing methodology, CrowdMed has resolved over 1,000 real-world medical cases to date, with an over 60% success rate, for patients who on average had been sick for 7 years, seen 8 doctors, and incurred over $70,000 in medical expenses before submitting their case. Our average case resolution time is only 2 months. CrowdMed’s amazing results have been submitted to major peer-reviewed medical journals for publication, and presented at prestigious healthcare events including the PMWC, Health Innovation Summit, and TEDMED. To learn more, watch our overview video and animated ‘How it Works’ videos for patients and Medical Detectives (under 2 minutes each) and our long list of glowing patient quotes.

Thanks to our new API integration with drchrono, our technology is now easily accessible to any physician or patient using their platform. This means that drchrono physicians can now refer patients to CrowdMed with the click of a button, and participate as Medical Detectives on our site using their drchrono login, earning points and cash rewards while expanding their medical knowledge, and helping patients around the world in desperate need of answers.

Since drchrono now has over 70,000 medical professionals and millions of patients on its platform, CrowdMed’s reach is now dramatically expanded — and we couldn’t be more pleased.

We hope to one day provide accurate, reliable crowdsourced medical answers to every patient in the world with an unresolved medical case. Our exciting new partnership with drchrono brings us one step closer to that goal. Check out our drchrono API integration today!