OrganizedWisdom is very excited to announce that we have just launched the public beta of LiveWisdom, a new service that enables anyone to connect LIVE via chat with board certified doctors, health professionals, and health advocates for an inexpensive per minute access change.
The LiveWisdom service, which has been in private beta since it was first previewed at Health 2.0's Spring Fling in San Diego, officially went live on hundreds of OrganizedWisdom WisdomCards late last week and over the coming weeks we plan to integrate the service into thousands of WisdomCards where people will find it most useful to ask doctors questions about the topic they are searching on.
Test the LiveWisdom Service:
HIV, Birth Control, Erectile Dysfunction Treatments, Chickenpox
Why Live Wisdom?
We launched LiveWisdom service because we
believe that asking doctors questions should be easy, affordable, and
accessible to all. Even if you don't have health insurance. And especially if you don't have easy access to experts anytime day or night when you may have an important health question.
In fact, as we integrate new features and services into our WisdomCards our goal is for you to feel like OrganizedWisdom is like having a doctor in your family (see our related post titled Do You Have A Doctor in Your Family). The LiveWisdom service is an important part of achieving this mission.
Does LiveWisdom Replace the Good Old-Fashioned Doctor Visit?
LiveWisdom does not replace the need to visit with your doctor in person, especially in the case of a medical emergency. LiveWisdom is a complementary service to seeing your own doctor and lets you chat or email with medical professionals to ask them questions. In fact, depending on the health issue or your specific questions, it may be likely that the doctors will advise you to see your doctor or go to an emergency room if they think it is necessary.
Affordability, Anonymity and Access
There are three great benefits to LiveWisdom that we believe will help a lot of people. First of all because of the unique low-cost per minute charge, it is possible to have your helath questions answered for only a few dollars. This means that anyone can afford to use the service even if you don't have health insurance.
The service, now in public beta, also enables people to chat with doctors anonymously and in a private forum. There is no link between the information you provide the doctor you are chatting with and the account you set up to use the service. They won't even know who you are other than what information you provide. We believe this will help many people who may want privacy, anonymity or not feel comfortable speaking to a doctor in person about certain questions.
Perhaps the greatest benefit of the service is the access it provides people to medical professionals and board certified doctors. Any time day or night, seven days a week, you will be able to chat live with a doctor and ask them questions.
How to Use the Service
To have a LiveWisdom chat session with an expert, you must be on one of our WisdomCards that features the LiveWisdom service as pictured above. The experts who are
available for Live Chat have a flashing orange/yellow "Contact Live"
button next to their listings. You may want to browse through the
listings of a few of the available experts, view their profiles and
compare their ratings.
To enter a Live Chat session, click on the "Contact Live" button that
is located next to the expert of your choice. You will be asked to register to become a member of LivePerson (a public company whose technology runs the LiveWisdom service): it’s simple and there`s
no obligation. You will be asked to accept the LivePerson legal agreement and submit
your billing information. Your card will not be charged at this stage.
Click on the "Start Session" button to open up the
Communication Center. You will not have to download any software in
order to chat live. Please wait a few seconds for the expert to
respond. The session begins in free mode. You can click on the "Hire
Expert" button when you are ready to begin the paid session. To quit,
simply click the "Quit Session" button.
If the expert is unavailable, the following message appears: `Sorry!
This expert is not available at this time`. If you wish, you can send
the expert an email inquiry by clicking the blue "start an E-mail
Session" icon.
Just the Beginning...
We'll be showing off the LiveWisdom service much more in the coming weeks and months as we work to integrate the service across our WisdomCard Library. We'll also introduce you to several of the doctors and experts and share feedback and more testimonials from people who have used the service.
In the meantime, test the service for yourself and let us know what you think.
Congratulations all - can't wait to test out the service!
Posted by: Jen McCabe Gorman | September 09, 2008 at 08:09 AM