Ontario Today –CBC Radio One Telecast

Steve Mills: How are you making a living as an Entrepreneur in the Digital World?
Angela: Medical Confidence is our business and we empower patients to become active and informed participants in their Healthcare decisions.

Steve Mills: What does that mean; how does that work?
Angela: We have Patient Advocates which are registered nurses and they work with you over the phone and through the Internet. You can sign the Agreements online with us. You can get your Medical records to us through online mechanisms. We have a team of Specialists that we call our Medical Detective Team that review your case, a case can be very simple or a very complex, such as a Chronic illness or having been undiagnosed for years.

Steve Mills: Is this like a second opinion online?
Angela: Yes, it is like a second opinion online and then we go one step further by working with your family physician to match you to the best specialist for your condition. We’ve created a directory of all Doctors across Ontario and specialist across 350 subspecialties. We identify what type of specialist you really need to be seeing and we go that one step further and work with your family physicians to help you get that appointment with that Doctor.

Steve Mills: You are a Patient Advocate in a way.
Angela: Yes, that is exactly what we are.

Steve Mills: So how has the company grown. Tell me about how things have been developing?
Angela: It is very interesting; our business has grown very quickly. It started off with my sister; she went undiagnosed for years with a very extreme and rare neurological disorder. She lived in Alberta while I lived here (in Ontario) and I wanted to help. I began researching options and secured her an appointment with a specialist. I did all of this remotely, even the specialist she saw was in the States. This made me think and I could do this for other people.

I hear all the time about how people are struggling with trying to find the right doctor to help them with their specific condition. It stemmed from my passion and then it grew by word of mouth of friends, then we created Facebook and Linkedin and now we typically sponsor an event once a year where we take a true hardship case and we host a fundraiser for them. We are getting a lot of traction through the web and through a little bit of philanthropy work.

Steve Mills: I like that too, harnessing the internet for more commoners.
Mike McDermott: It is really wonderful to see being able to empower folks, the patient who may be struggling. Classically you have only just been able to go to a Doctor, hoping they know something about this, but here you can go out and get that extra knowledge from Medical Confidence.

It also makes a really hard time for Doctors, because people are coming in with some knowledge in this case it sounds like we are connecting folks with Specialists, which is great. But it really is changing the model of healthcare and the knowledge patients have.

Steve Mills: It is a kind of a multiplying effect of medical Knowledge in a way it is going to sprinkle around more equally than it used to be.
Thanks Angela.