Meet Your.MD's Advisory Board

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The new normal: Health apps as a gateway to vital sexual health services

Your.MD’s four challenges and the rationale behind our partnership with RB

Android 4.0

Using pre-primary care to improve healthcare 

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Symptom tracking with Your.MD

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Personalising health at Your.MD

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How Your.MD delivers on the NHS’ Code of Conduct for Data-Driven Health Technology

Say hello to healthily, the complete self-care app

Say hello to Healthily

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Introducing Your.MD’s COVID-19 Symptom Mapper

Head of Content Innovations and Operations

Dr Lauretta Ihonor

YMD-blog

Your.MD is stepping up in the fight against the coronavirus with the launch of the COVID-19 Symptom Mapper. 

If you have symptoms of COVID-19 or have tested positive for the virus, you can use the symptom mapper to assess whether you have mild, moderate or severe symptoms and to understand how your symptoms compare with other people around the world.

As more people use this tool, we’ll be able to provide more information about how COVID-19 is affecting your country and community.

The more our users contribute, the more we can contribute to the global fight against the outbreak. 

[[SC]]
|#### Try the COVID-19 Symptom Mapper
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|[TRY SYMPTOM MAPPER](https://covid19.your.md/?utm_source=yourmd&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=/blog/introducing-your-mds-covid-19-symptom-mapper)

## How does the COVID-19 Symptom Mapper work?
The COVID-19 Symptom Mapper asks users to provide details of when they first had symptoms, how they feel and how badly they’re experiencing a range of symptoms associated with COVID-19. 

You can come back at any time to report changes in your symptoms, and if you provide an email address, we’ll send you a follow-up questionnaire to know when you recovered.

Of the launch, Matteo Berlucchi, Chief Executive of Your.MD said: “We want people to stay healthy and stay at home. If we can help that cause by giving people the sense that they are not alone and can contribute to the fight, then that’s what we should be doing.”

Your.MD’s COVID-19 Symptom Mapper is free and can be used on Apple and Android phones.

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|Try the COVID-19 Symptom Mapper
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|[TRY SYMPTOM MAPPER](https://covid19.your.md/?utm_source=yourmd&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=/blog/introducing-your-mds-covid-19-symptom-mapper)

For the latest information on the coronavirus outbreak, visit our [coronavirus hub](/coronavirus/summary) and sign-up to our Daily Drop-in service to receive valuable tips on how to survive social distancing.

Your.MD launches the COVID-19 Symptom Mapper, a tool which helps people compare their symptoms with other people around the world. 


Your.MD is ready to graduate to the next level.

We have spent two years since the launch of Your.MD 3.0 shipping great new features, squashing bugs, and listening to your feedback. Now we’re going up a grade to Your.MD 4.0 for Android and iOS devices.

For us, a “major” app version release is a big deal – it’s another step closer to our vision of helping you Find Your Health. 

__So, what’s new? __

In Your.MD 4.0, we’re introducing three new features: Journal, Notes and Discover. 

## Journal

![journal-feature](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/2kQ4zLQnyTtsgE3NC9DlyM/464498436cd5ffb0e1d81412fc5a8de3/journal-feature.jpg)

Our health changes over the course of a year, or even in a single month - sometimes we’re up, and sometimes we’re down.

Journal lets you follow your health journey over time by storing consultation reports, symptom tracking information and useful articles all in one place. It helps you keep on top of your health, enables you to see trends in your health over time, and goes beyond the data by giving you information on when to take action. It can be accessed from the home screen.

## Notes

![notes-feature](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/7cx1tZNY5FosABe85ecGfL/c598ef00d9e773b7f00dee627cbbb323/notes-feature.jpg)

Ever wanted somewhere safe to jot down something your doctor told you? How about writing down why you feel so great today, or what made your symptoms worse, or what you dreamt last night?

Notes is your safe space to write whatever you want, whenever you want. Health cannot always be represented with data or numbers, so create your first Note on the home screen to express yourself in a way a chart could never represent. 

## Discover

![discover-feature](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/1SoXP6oSgidVjl9iTwWMD5/7deb9e47a71662f26582394d994d481f/discover-feature.jpg)

Here, you can find trusted third-party providers delivering additional health services, and improve your health knowledge by reading articles written and validated by the UK’s National Health Service, and Your.MD’s writers and medical team.

We have also spent some time simplifying the app. The new home screen was built with one thing in mind – letting you access the most relevant features, quicker. Now, you can start a conversation with the chatbot, track your health, start a plan or read an article about how you can self-care all in one place. 

The navigation is now simpler too. We reduced the number of tabs down from five to three:

- Home
- Chat
- Discover

Oh… and we have given chat a fresh lick of paint and removed everything that wasn’t essential to you finding health information. 

All in all, we hope that Your.MD 4.0 is a much simpler and more engaging app to use. We want you to be able to Find Your Health, whether you are sick, healthy or want to be even fitter! We’ve got plenty more in the pipeline for 4.0, so the changes won’t stop here. 

Over the next few months, we will be introducing personalised health programmes to empower you to take control of your health, and make being healthy fun! 

[[ATZ]]
|Check out the new features and join the 3M+ people already using Your.MD to get better and stay healthy!
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|[Get started](https://go.onelink.me/941508217/f825d18f)

If you have any questions or comments, please get in touch on [feedback@livehealthily.com](mailto:feedback@livehealthily.com)


In Your.MD 4.0, we’re introducing three new features: Journal, Notes and Discover.

Welcome to Your.MD 4.0

Introducing Your.MD 4.0 - Managing your health just got a lot easier

## Our mission
At Your.MD, we take your health and wellbeing seriously. That's why our app, Healthily, is the world's first medically-approved self-care app designed around you. 

We've combined responsive artificial intelligence (AI) with medically-approved insights and tools, to deliver accurate and up-to-date information that's matched to your specific needs

The result is a self-care assistant that helps you take the best next steps for your health. 

Our mission? 

That's simple. 

We want to help a billion people find their health through self-care.

## The management team
Your.MD's management team brings together award-winning knowledge and experience in medicine, product design, content creation and patient safety to deliver a best-in-class product you can trust.

Creating a safe, current, reliable and personalised product is our priority, and we've put together the highly-skilled and diverse team needed to make this happen. 

Here's an overview of the people and expertise in Your.MD's management team.

### Matteo Berlucchi
#### Chief Executive Officer
Matteo Berlucchi is a serial digital entrepreneur with 25 years of experience in launching and scaling online businesses. Passionate about helping people find what they're looking for, Matteo launched the first internet property search website in Europe in 1995. By 2006, he had created the first live news aggregator, followed by the first social discovery platform for books in 2010 and Your.MD in 2015. Matteo is a UBS Global Visionary, Entrepreneur in Residence at ETH Zurich and a regular speaker at international conferences. He has a doctoral degree in theoretical physics and has carried out post-graduate research in virtual reality at Imperial College London. He's a father of three, expert in Italian wines and a self-confessed hypochondriac.

### Jonathon Carr-Brown
#### Chief Operating Officer
Jonathon Carr-Brown has had a diverse career. He was an award-winning senior political and investigative correspondent for The Sunday Times, and a speechwriter for the UK Government's Secretary of State for Health. He went on to become the managing director of NHS Choices (now called NHS.uk), where he helped create and run the UK National Health Service's public-facing health information site. Jonathon has extensive digital start-up experience with companies like ADVault and Locum's Nest, and public policy initiatives like NHS LifeCheck and MyNHS data. In 2014, he was made an honorary teaching fellow at the Institute of Global Health Innovation within the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London.

### Andy Bellas
#### Chief Strategy Officer
Andy Bellas advises company boards on marketing and brand image. As the co-founder of the people management platform Hibob, he revolutionised the field of human resources. Before founding Hibob, Andy was a partner at the award-winning communications agency Splendid Communications and the strategy director at leading marketing company Mother. As Your.MD's chief strategy officer, Andy is focused on making our app, Healthily, the destination for self-care information and personal health management anywhere in the world.

### Justin Berkovi
#### Chief Product Officer
Justin Berkovi is a product leader and founder with a career that spans more than 20 years. He has led product teams at Google, Deutsche Bank and Visa. In 2003, he co-founded the entertainment company Mind Candy and then launched Venlo – an award-winning agency – in 2008. Justin has spoken at product conferences and round table events, and he has mentored industry practitioners. As a strong advocate of mental health, he founded *A Better Tomorrow* – a workshop for teams. Justin lives in North London, UK, is a fitness fanatic and a father of two. 

### Matt West
#### Chief Commercial Officer
Matt West has spent more than 20 years bringing cutting-edge digital products to market. While working at one of the first internet service providers, World Online, Matt delivered new security, mobile, music and video-on-demand services.  As the director of content partnerships and expansion markets at Yahoo! (EMEA), he launched and expanded the business’ footprint across 13 countries. Prior to joining Your.MD, Matt was vice president EMEA of Local Measure – a social customer experience platform.

### Prof Maureen Baker
#### Chief Medical Officer
Prof Maureen Baker is the former chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and a national leader in primary care and digital technology. She joined NHS Connecting for Health in 2007 and developed standards for digital clinical safety that have been adopted internationally. As chief medical officer, she ensures that all of Your.MD's doctors are properly trained in clinical safety and that the whole organisation follows clearly-defined clinical assessment processes.

### Rex Cooper
#### Chief Technology Officer
Rex Cooper is a highly-experienced technology leader with more than 20 years of experience in the industry. Prior to joining Your.MD, he was the British Medical Journal's chief technology officer – a role in which he rewrote and revived the company's key digital products. Other previous roles include head of development at The Guardian, and software development manager at Disney. Rex enjoys spending time with his family and keeping fit by playing football or skiing.

### David Gross
#### Chief Growth Officer
David Gross joins us from Canon where he led the digital transformation of its €2bn consumer business across EMEA. He has previously driven growth for several other large corporations (including Express Newspapers and The Hotel Collection) and has built up and exited a digital marketplace business. His pioneering success as a Growth leader is driven by cross functional data-led strategies and an obsessive focus on the customer.

### Geraldine Butler-Wright
#### Chief People and Culture Officer
Geraldine Butler-Wright has created and driven innovative people programmes throughout her extensive career in people and culture. Her previous roles include leading transformative people initiatives at Imperial College London and building people functions in FinTech companies, such as YoyoWallet and PayPal. Geraldine is also an executive coach who enjoys supporting the leaders and founders of tomorrow – both in the workplace and through her advisory role with the global venture capital firm and start-up generator Antler. 

### Sarah Lerche
#### Chief Finance Officer
Sarah Lerche has 25 years of experience in the technology industry. In 2010, she founded her own financial services company, Carzetta, before merging it to co-found Escalon Services. Prior to this, Sarah developed and built the financial department of the IT software management company Mercury Interactive. Her time at the company saw its annual revenue grow from US$50 million to US$700 million.

### Nina Sivec
#### Chief Legal Officer
Nina Sivec has 14 years of experience with IT start-ups, and specialises in IT, commercial law and compliance. Over the course of her career, she has overseen compliance at Outfit7 – a global company best known for the creation of the media app and franchise Talking Tom and Friends, as well as one of the highest valued exits in 2017.

### Sally Creamer
#### Head of Marketing
Sally Creamer is a senior marketer with notable experience in the health, wellness and clothing industries. During her career, she has worked with global consumer lifestyle brands such as Martha Stewart, adidas, Tory Burch and lululemon. Sally's cross-functional marketing background spans brand positioning, content creation, international marketing, corporate communications, PR, and retail and partnership development. Originally from Texas, USA, Sally now lives in Surrey, UK with her husband and two cavapoos, and she has a baby girl on the way.  

### Gareth Thomas
#### Vice President of Engineering
Gareth Thomas has held senior roles across a variety of industries, including healthcare, insurance and broadcasting. Prior to joining Your.MD, he was the chief technology officer at the insurance start-up Sherpa. Other previous roles include chief information officer at Fuel3D and director of engineering at the pioneering social networking portal aSmallWorld. Gareth also spent 12 years in the US, where he worked in the medical systems industry and founded Mercury Software and Castell Technology. 

### George Brand
#### Director of Delivery
George Brand is a progressive delivery leader with over 20 years' experience in driving software development projects. In 2006, he launched an online app store for HP Windows Mobile devices, and he managed the Orange Telecom mobile loyalty programme, Orange Wednesdays, in 2008. He went on to roll out a contactless mobile solution in the US as part of the Microsoft Innovation Outreach Program in 2010. More recently, George has used his expertise in agile and lean implementation to help improve the organisational structure of global brands, such as ASOS and MADE.COM. 

### Darryl Hubble
#### Head of Growth
Darryl Hubble is a digital native with seven years of experience across both e-commerce and healthcare. As a digital marketer, his background spans search, display, social, conversion rate optimisation and app marketing. Darryl is passionate about scaling digital solutions that have been created with the goal of solving the world’s most pressing issues, and he's an advocate for sustainability. He has a degree in international business from the University of Hertfordshire, and sits on the university's alumni advisory board. In his spare time, Darryl plays competitive hockey and loves to ski.

### Dr Lauretta Ihonor
#### Head of Content Innovations and Operations
Dr Lauretta Ihonor is a qualified doctor and journalist with more than 10 years' experience in multimedia content creation. She graduated from University College London Medical School with an MBBS and a distinction in clinical practice before working as a junior doctor at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London. She went on to retrain as a journalist - gaining a master's degree in international journalism in 2013. As a journalist, she has worked for the BBC, CNN International and Sky News. She also holds a first-class BSc in human genetics and is a certified nutritional medicine practitioner.

### Dr Andras Meczner
#### Head of Clinical Innovations and Operations
Dr Andras Meczner is a paediatrician with a special interest in neonatology. He graduated from Semmelweis University in Hungary and completed his training in Budapest and London. He also has a master’s degree in health policy, planning and financing from the London School of Economics and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. 

### Tracy Cheung
#### Operations Manager
Tracy Cheung has over 15 years experience in the communications and creative sector. She managed the operations of the sustainability communications agency, Salterbaxter, during its expansion from the UK into the US. Before joining Salterbaxter, Tracy spent six years working at the Wellcome Trust, where she helped launch its intranet. Tracy is driven by working with great people and for companies with a purpose she can get behind.

### Henry Redman
#### Head of User Experience
Henry Redman began his career in design in his native country, South Africa. After moving to London he spent 10 years working in publishing before turning to user experienced-focused design. Since then, he has worked as a strategic user experience leader at PayPal and Schibsted - roles in which he developed his passion for evolving teams and helping businesses improve their product offering through user-centred methods. Henry thrives on building products that make a difference. 


Healthily's management team ensures that all of our products and services are produced to the highest standard. 

Learn more about the management team behind Your.MD/Healthily.

Healthily's management team

Our Management Team


## Editorial team

Your.MD's editorial team ensures that the content published across all Your.MD platforms is of the highest standard and upholds our prinicples of medical integrity. The team sources, writes, edits and fact-checks the information we publish to ensure it is accurate, current, evidence-based, trustworthy and tailored to the needs of our readers. 

Every piece of health-related content is reviewed by our team of qualified doctors and sourced according to strict guidelines. We strive to update our articles when relevant new information becomes available. 

Read more about [our editorial policy and principles](/legal/editorial-policy-principles).

### Meera Senthilingam
#### Self-Care Content Lead

![Meera headshot 2](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/5A5hAXairvEcpueH0iUjUS/b5a83d592ac8f1107b5ec07acf198993/Image_from_iOS__1_.jpg)
Meera Senthilingam is a health journalist and editor. She has worked for various health and media organisations, including CNN, the BBC, the Wellcome Trust, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), and the World Health Organization. Meera has a master’s degree in science communication from Imperial College London and also in the control of infectious diseases from the LSHTM. In 2020, Meera authored the book *Outbreaks and Epidemics: Battling infection from measles to coronavirus*. She has published academic papers in the field of drug-resistant tuberculosis.

### Mike Martin
#### Chief Sub-Editor

![Mike headshot cropped](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/4xS0UiUuFr5bVue0NvXmJV/7433ad7342546e21cd77f1891c436919/Mike-Martin-crop.jpg)
Mike Martin graduated from the University of Westminster with a BA in media studies before going on to work at various media outlets, including Teletext, AOL, International Business Times (IBT) and The Guardian. At IBT he oversaw the implementation of search engine optimisation (SEO) strategies across a team of 6 sub-editors, which drove a 90% increase in readership reach. In 2017, Mike moved from IBT to The Guardian where he worked as a sub-editor within a team that achieved a digital readership reach of 24 million. 

### Alex Bussey
#### Senior Health Writer
![Alex Bussey headshot 2](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/3EpHbG3uQ6DTSRKmA5MSXn/d170bda82a19888f9be91a6973f9bb36/unnamed.jpg)
Alex Bussey is an experienced writer with a BA in English from the University of Leeds, and over 8 years of experience. He’s worked with award-winning digital agencies, start-ups and publishing houses all over the world and he specialises in communicating complex concepts to a broad audience. Alex has a particular interest in writing about mental health and chronic health conditions.   

### Georgina Newman
#### Health Writer

![Georgina Newman headshot 2](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/39sHWWUdjB0BKnxhEeUZ8C/efdf30b433145eec38bdeadc97ca797c/AR0A9138.jpg)
Georgina Newman is a journalist who undertook her training with the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ). She has 6 years of experience in copywriting and editing. Georgina has worked with award-winning digital agencies across several sectors and now specialises in health journalism. She is passionate about self-care and making trustworthy health content accessible to all.  

### Katherine Hignett
#### Health Writer

![Katherine Hignett](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/VxMOJlpApACBS7TWru0P5/370049d1152bda92d1171e5d5a36fd02/IMG_20200908_164147.jpg)
Katherine Hignett is an award-winning health writer with a BA in philosophy from the University of York and an MSc in medical anthropology from the University of Oxford. She's worked at medical publishing houses, health policy websites and international news outlets. Katherine is passionate about making complex health information accessible to the general public, and has a particular interest in nutrition and health inequality.

## Medical team
Your.MD's medical team ensures that the content published across all Your.MD platforms has the highest levels of medical safety and accuracy. Our medical safety checks involve verifying if the information given is deemed medically safe and current. 

This includes ensuring that:
- important medical information has not been omitted
- content has not been written in a way that its meaning may be misinterpreted
- the information obtained from the sources used has been correctly interpreted
- the medical information provided is current

Read more about our [safety-checking procedures](/legal/editorial-policy-principles).

### Dr Shankari Dhinakharan
#### Clinical Lead and Clinical Safety Officer, MBBS
![Shankari headshot](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/63c8uSViebT6VZFie5GuSK/25e9891fd870847516489be732c96a72/Shankari_headshot.jpg)
Dr Shankari Dhinakharan is a UK-based general practitioner. She graduated from the National University of Singapore and trained in Singapore before moving to the UK. Dr Dhinakharan has an interest in reviewing medical content and is passionate about health informatics.

### Dr Audrey Menezes
#### Clinical Lead, MBBS, FRACGP, DCH, BA (Adv)
![Audrey headshot](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/oCPRyoLnCYOZel1l3ATMm/4c947b1169244629046d4aff0d7088c3/audrey__1_.jpg)
Dr Audrey Menezes is a general practitioner who is originally from New Zealand and trained in Australia after graduating from the University of Sydney. She has special interests in women's health and paediatrics, and is a clinical associate lecturer at the University of Sydney. Dr Menezes is passionate about healthcare transformation through digital innovation.

### Dr Benedict Hayhoe
#### Clinical Lead, BSc, MBBS, LLM, MD, DRCOG, DPMSA, MRCGP, FHEA, FFCI
![Benedict Hayhoe headshot](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/3FPTT1IITtxpvpLZLir4fm/223bbae9ba3dcd6ce162354b7c9f0423/Benedict_Hayhoe_headshot.jpg)
Dr Benedict Hayhoe is a London-based general practitioner and clinical lecturer in primary care at Imperial College London. He qualified from University College London in 2005, and was awarded an LLM in Legal Aspects of Medical Practice in 2009, an MD in 2014 and Fellowship of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics in 2020. Dr Hayhoe is the author of more than 30 peer-reviewed papers, and his current research interests include antimicrobial resistance, diagnosis and management of long-term conditions, and digital health.

### Dr Tamer Malak
#### Clinical Lead, BM, MRCGP, MRCS, MSc, FHEA
![Tamar Malak headshot](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/22cU9zD5gQs2w1306o11uB/b3ed4abf8b065b861f102add1290ae06/Tamer_T_Malak__1_.jpg)
Dr Tamer Malak graduated from the University of Southampton and completed his core surgical training in the south east of England. After moving to the Oxford Deanery, he specialised in orthopaedic surgery to registrar level before switching to general practice.

Dr Malak is a general practitioner with a specialist interest in musculoskeletal science and medical research. He is currently a DPhil student at the University of Oxford, undertaking a part-time programme of epidemiological and medical device surveillance research in musculoskeletal science.

### Dr Rebecca Thomas
#### Clinical Lead and Clinical Safety Lead, BMBS, BMedSci, MRCGP

![Rebecca Thomas headshot 2](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/23PsyBIvZQ6I31EMnzzedr/f4662674c34acb6a7f3c580721203fef/Rebecca_Thomas_headshot.jpg)
Dr Rebecca Thomas is a general practitioner based in London. She graduated from the University of Nottingham and completed her general practice training in Derby before moving to London. She has a passion for lifestyle and preventative medicine.

### Dr Maria Reza
#### Clinical Lead and Clinical Safety Officer, MBBS, BSc
![Maria Reza headshot](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/6F7G6zd8WppKbruYRukPwf/a48633c9dba6caa9bba6f3faf5b4741c/Maria_Reza_headshot.jpg)
Dr Maria Reza graduated from King's College London with the School of Medicine Gold Medal. She spent several years working across a range of specialities in London, Kent and Sussex before transitioning to the digital healthcare sector. Dr Reza is a trained clinical safety officer who is passionate about improving healthcare through digital technologies, artificial intelligence and innovation.

### Dr Shailen Sutaria
#### Clinical Lead, BMedSci, MBBS, MSc, MRCP, MRCGP, FFPH
![Shailen headshot](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/1dcBMAjaFrez82L2ggpbCF/89bb42da39a1bc3734b6d484cfd726b8/Shailen__portrait__work__1_.jpg)
Dr Shailen Sutaria is a consultant in public health medicine with a background in clinical medicine and research. He completed his medical training at St Bartholomew’s and The Royal London Hospital, where he still works. In 2008 he undertook a master’s in public health at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and was awarded an Academic Clinical Fellowship at University College London. In 2018 Dr Sutaria was awarded a fellowship of the Faculty of Public Health. He is currently a medical member for Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunal Service.


Your.MD's content is produced by an experienced team of health writers and editors, and reviewed by qualified medical doctors.

Learn more about the team of qualified writers, editors and doctors behind Your.MD's content.

Your.MD's editorial and medical team

Our Editorial and Medical Team

This week, we’re relaunching our app as Healthily - the  self-care app.

Healthily is a simple, personalised way to assess, learn, track and manage your wellbeing – and find vetted health products and services.

Registered as a Class 1 medical device, thanks to our world-class healthcare expertise and safety standards, it’s the  self-care app you can use every day – to live Healthily.

[[SC]]
|#### Download the Your.MD app and you’ll be the first to know about the Healthily launch.
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|[DOWNLOAD](https://go.onelink.me/941508217/9934a731)



This week, we’re relaunching our app as Healthily - the self-care app.

Say Hello to Healthily

Healthily takes your safety seriously. So seriously that we’ve asked some of the most fiercely independent medical experts in the world to keep us on the right track.

We were the first to create an artificial intelligence (AI) self-assessment tool with an independent Clinical Advisory Board (CAB), and we did so with good reason. The board's objective is to guide our clinical team and safeguard the interests of everyone who uses our products. We’re very proud of the work they do, so we would like you to know who they are.

## Dr Mark Davies
![Dr Mark Davies, Your.MD Clinical Advisory Board](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/3LzaChfYfnXII6GzCgyPPk/3194a4228ed9ab84bf0b1cac4cc870b1/Mark_Davies_final_image.jpg)
Mark is the Chairman of our CAB and  brings more than 20 years' experience as a family doctor to the team. He’s worked for the last 10 years in a number of clinical leadership roles at the UK's Department of Health and Social Care, and the Cabinet Office. He was also the Executive Medical Director of the NHS Information Centre. Mark is now the Chief Medical Officer for IBM Europe and a Non-Executive Director of The BMJ.

Mark's industry experience and credentials make him the ideal fit as the Chair of our CAB. As a leading figure in health policy, informatics and system redesign, Mark's interests align directly with those of Healthily.

## Dr Nick Summerton
![Dr Nick Summerton](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/27zPsI9UIi3TOYG7lAWsOE/c7f623772ea481e4db35f2c00899c466/Nick_Summerton.jpg)
Nick literally wrote the book on how to diagnose people by listening to what they say. *Primary Care Diagnostics* explains how to interpret and apply information obtained directly from the patient.

He has played a key role in highlighting the importance of the patient's input into the diagnostic process and of using investigations only after careful thought has been given to the costs and benefits, from both the patient's and the health service's perspectives.

Much of Nick’s thinking underpins Healthily’s approach to digital consultations.

By day, Nick is a family doctor and he has recently published Better Value Health Checks: A Practical Guide. He’s a member of the Royal College of General Practitioner (RCGP), a fellow of the Faculty of Public Health, a specialist advisor for the Care Quality Commission and sits on the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) diagnostic advisory committee.

## Prof Mahmood Adil
![Mahmood Adil](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/20vAUSlUPOPu4xcS2rv06N/7514fc65ee48d7077c70dec4d7ff86aa/Mahmood_Adil.jpg)
Mahmood has 25 years of medical, public health and executive management experience in the NHS and USA. His current job is to oversee, as Medical Director, the health intelligence and protection functions for Scotland delivered through the Information Services Division (ISD) and Health Protection Scotland (HPS).

He’s an alumnus of the Harvard Kennedy School, the UK Prime Minister’s Top Management Programme, Common Purpose 20:20 and Yale School of Public Health. He also helped set up England’s Care Quality Commission and served as its Medical Director.

## Dr Aomesh Bhatt
![Aomesh Bhatt](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/2PBNtLQ1e4rXkRGoJsb5XP/9191129982d9d2ec34034b83a016552f/Aomesh_Bhatt.jpg)
Dr Aomesh Bhatt, is a senior clinical research fellow in the Medical Sciences Division at the University of Oxford and has an interest in using regulatory frameworks to translate research into clinical practice.

He previously served as the overall Head of Medical Affairs and Clinical Development at RB where he assumed responsibility for global medical affairs, clinical development and health outcomes research for the group.

Aomesh was a member of the NICE Technology Appraisal Committee for 6 years where he led several technology appraisals and spent 3 years on the NICE Guidelines Review Committee.

## Dr Vishal Gulati 
![Dr. Vishal Gulati](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/1P1m9GIrNu3vTpWtVpbfXt/fad2ced5eca6a9ffaca93dbe9b8fc5e4/Dr.__Vishal_Gulati__1_.jpg)
Dr Vishal Gulati is a venture capital investor who focuses on projects that combine data, healthcare and biology. Vishal has led Draper Esprit’s investments into some of Europe’s leading companies in these sectors. In addition to Vishal’s role at Draper Esprit, he’s an independent director on the board of two publicly listed companies, Horizon Discovery (Cambridge) and Sensyne Health (Oxford). He’s the Chairman of Digital Health Forum and serves on Innovate UK’s Major Award Committee. 

Prior to this, Vishal worked at Atlas Venture, The Wellcome Trust and Radiant Capital. Vishal received his postgraduate medical training at centres including the Nuffield Department of Medicine (Oxford) and the Department of Medicine (St Mary’s Hospital, London), as a Rhodes Scholar.

## Dr Patricia Schartau 
![Profile photo Patricia Schartau head ](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/P69Dz9G9y49yfucpqC1Cz/540e0d36e89e88d1b95329fce3acb8ec/Profile_photo_Patricia_Schartau_head___1_.jpg)
Dr Patricia Schartau is an academic clinical lecturer in primary care at University College London and a family doctor in central London, with a specialist interest in men’s health. Patricia’s entrepreneurial activities include the NHS Entrepreneurship Programme and being an advisor for healthcare start-ups. She’s also an editorial board member of the journal Trends in Urology and Men’s Health and a trustee of the Sexual Advice Association.

## Julia Cawthorne
![Julia Cawthorne headshot](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/wWdkn437qNt94t9wZBzfZ/be6f4d85e8e72390048768a78e98e510/Julia_Cawthorne_headshot.jpg)
Julia Cawthorne is a clinical safety consultant and registered general nurse with 26 years’ experience of working in the NHS’s acute care sector. She has worked in both hands on clinical, health IT, clinical change and clinical safety roles. During this time, Julia was also a member of the West Midlands National Programme Clinical Safety Board from 2011 to 2013. After leaving the NHS, Julia worked for BT Global Health leading the clinical safety assessment of health IT solutions used by NHS Trusts in London and the south of England as part of the NHS National Programme for IT. Julia currently works as an independent clinical safety officer for Safehand Consulting – a specialist consultancy service that helps organisations comply with health IT safety standards and regulations.

So, that’s the Clinical Advisory Board. They keep us on our toes and make sure we deliver to the highest possible clinical standards.

Find out who serves on Healthily’s independent Clinical Advisory Board. 


Meet Your.MD’s Advisory Board

The Clinical Advisory Board

Trust means you rely on someone else to do the right thing. When you use Your.MD, you’re relying on our team to have put together the safest and best quality product they can achieve.

But you can’t trust someone you don’t know.

Here is a brief introduction to the leadership team building the world’s most personal, safe and reliable health information service for 1 billion people around the globe.


## Matteo Berlucchi
![Matteo Berlucchi](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/5L7WqcZRDLPdP7h0kaEtwv/700eff8f80b9010858578c0b41678e3f/AR0A9361.jpg)

First up is __Matteo Berlucchi__, our co-founder and serial entrepreneur, who has developed a knack of being first to deliver digital innovation in new consumer sectors. Prior to co-founding Your.MD he was the founder and CEO of aNobii, the world’s first ‘social ebook’ platform sold to Sainsbury’s.

Matteo launched the first internet property website in the world, pioneered live streaming on mobile phones with Livestation and partnered with Microsoft to redefine push notifications globally with Skinkers. As a theoretical physicist, he brings scientific rigour to our work and Italian flair.


## Prof Dr. Maureen Baker CBE
![Prof Dr. Maureen Baker CBE](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/1AaOVk9acLqfsOiNQCQR1p/185b68027e48e190f6abc7e75358ffb1/AR0A9353.jpg)

__Prof Dr. Maureen Baker CBE__ is Your.MD’s Chief Medical Officer and the driving force behind our desire to be a service driven by quality and safety.

Maureen oversees a team of certified general practitioners, consultants and epidemiologists dedicated to constantly improving Your.MD’s medical experience. 

She pioneered digital safety as Clinical Director for Patient Safety as the forerunner to NHS Digital. She has also served as Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and was honoured for her services to medicine in the 2004 New Year Honours list. 


## Andy Bellas
![Andy Bellas](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/a2s8176QDR8E3dVeGa4o1/83b2c2371e61576a10a0f24acd27ab25/AR0A9311.jpg)

Shaping Your.MD’s place in the world is __Andy Bellas__, our Chief Strategist. Andy advises company boards on marketing and brand image and is shaping Your.MD’s strategy to be the destination for self-care information and personal health management anywhere in the world.

As co-founder of Hibob, he has revolutionised human resources administration and has a distinguished track record as Strategy Director at Mother, a leading marketing company, and as a partner at Splendid Communications.


## Justin Berkovi
![Justin Berkovi ](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/5ZUa3RraRPbjKNyVHIH5MF/845d4b819df7bffb806342764700994b/AR0A9323.jpg)

__Justin Berkovi__ is Your.MD’s Chief Product Officer. He oversees the product team, shaping and curating meaningful experiences for Your.MD users. 

He has a career in product creation spanning more than 20 years, and has headed up product teams at Google, Deutsche Bank and Visa, and founded start-ups (including co-founding the entertainment company Mind Candy), an award-winning agency and the mental health workshop A Better Tomorrow.


## Jonathon Carr-Brown
![Jonathon Carr-Brown](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/6RIaXLGhHrB9vVLL1cAm9v/7d35ccd3cc6887250da5fa6af757cbd6/AR0A9347.jpg)

Leading on Your.MD’s quality management system is __Jonathon Carr-Brown__, Director of Operations.

Jonathon brings a deep knowledge of the health system gained during his time as a speechwriter for the UK’s Secretary of State for Health and as a consultant for health apps around the world. 

As the former founder and Managing Director of NHS.UK (NHS Choices), the UK’s largest health information service, he understands the systems and processes required to create high quality and safe health content and services. Jonathon grew NHS.UK from 3 million visits a month to 48 million in 4 years. 


## Rex Cooper
![Rex Cooper](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/42qNozBYib2NL444l8askm/7c00d1403caed42d0c6af280136437e7/AR0A9298.jpg)

Inspiring our technical colleagues to bring product features to life and keep our service running 24/7 is __Rex Cooper__, Your.MD’s Chief Technology Officer. 

Rex came to us from the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and is used to delivering high quality, patient-safe software in an agile environment. He has also worked with The Guardian, Rated People and Disney.


## Nina Sivec
![Nina Sivec](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/4xTJrrDKK59jM9aeC2kgqS/85837ca08ba650f99faf45708b064420/Nina_Sivec_B1.jpg)

Supporting all the teams and keeping us ahead of fast-moving global digital and clinical regulations is __Nina Sivec__, our Chief Legal Officer. Nina has 14 years of experience with IT start-ups and specialises in IT, commercial law and compliance. 

She has overseen compliance at Outfit7, a global company best known for the creation of the media app and franchise Talking Tom and Friends, as well as one of the highest valued exits in 2017.


## Matt West
![Matt West](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/1aQUOMvGddrruoaWWzeHGo/0cfb66c9ce1c5f0577e9a7e7bbaa5eb7/AR0A9294.jpg)

The core of Your.MD’s service will always be free to the consumer, and __Matt West__, our Chief Commercial Officer, is dedicated to finding partners that can provide additional services to our millions of users. 

Matt has spent more than 20 years creating digital services, specialising in commercial partnerships and new market development. Most recently, he led the expansion of Local Measure into EMEA and prior to that he launched Yahoo! in 13 new markets.


## Sarah Lerche
![Sarah Lerche](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/2fVw9tXt3C80GWy7ai4W9u/0004fcdd0fba3c08d37f8e543690f730/AR0A9359.jpg)

Our financial health is looked after by __Sarah Lerche__, Chief Financial Officer. Sarah has 25 years of experience in the technology industry, managing financial operations in both private and public organisations. She founded her own company Carzetta, providing financial services to numerous technology companies in Silicon Valley before merging it to co-found Escalon Services.

During her tenure at Mercury Interactive, Sarah developed and built its financial planning and analysis department, which was responsible for all the financial models used for investor guidance, strategic planning and budgeting, acquisitions and future growth. Her time at the company saw it grow from $50 million annual revenue to $700 million.


## George Brand
![George Brand](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/2zspmKgoJkW7L7367dMZBA/291905e28d2c72054d7677dbec6340e3/AR0A9340.jpg)

Keeping the show on the road is __George Brand__, Director of Delivery. George has years of experience building progressive tech platforms for the likes of ASOS, Concrete and MADE.COM. 

He’s an expert in agile and lean project implementation which helps Your.MD rapidly deliver high-quality experiences for our users.

## David Gross
![David Gross](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/5tZzcoQNsw9DHq6j5AjqVg/9ccaaf3a3f8297de87f94ec795f7916e/DG_image.png)

Leading our digital marketing and web site is __David Gross__. David has a 20 year track record of digital success as an entrepreneur and as a Board-level consultant and executive. He has built up top performing digital teams and delivered market winning growth engines for several scale ups and large corporations including Canon, Express Newspapers and The Hotel Collection.

Introducing Your.MD's leadership team building the world's most personal, safe and reliable health information service. 


Meet Your.MD’s Leadership Team

Your.MD strives to offer the best services to its users, hence we continuously monitor our performance and user experience in order to make improvements and offer the level of service users cannot get when visiting traditional primary care.

In order to ensure the same level of commitment on the side of our partners on the OneStop Health™ Service, we encourage our partners to follow our best practice guide when offering their service via OneStop Health™ Platform. We shall carry out random tests of our partner's service in order to achieve the mutual goal of providing advanced primary health care service, and may use professional healthcare auditors to monitor the performance of the service provided. To assure utmost quality, we may provide recommendations. We are confident that by working together and paying attention to our user's needs we are setting a new quality standard of offering the best primary health care.

## 1. Keeping our word
All companies have general terms and conditions to regulate their relationship with its users, but even the most sophisticated legal wording cannot beat the mere fact of providing the services as promised. We keep our word and do not promise more than we can deliver. When working with our users we strive to treat them as we treat our families, as we want to build trust and reliability. This is the easiest way of ensuring high retention rates.

## 2. Being accessible
Even with the best service and technology, one cannot eliminate the possibility that things may not always go as as planned. When this happens, it is important that we are accessible to our users, that we do not provide standard ‘do-not respond’ replies or leave them waiting on the line for hours. We have incorporated the methods of verifying our users’ satisfaction within our service. This way, we can actively listen to our users and solve any annoyances in a mutually beneficial way. In general, people understand that things may go wrong and with avoiding one-way communication and denial of responsibility we can achieve the level of respect that will lead our users to come back to our services.

## 3. Being proactive
We want to be the best and in order to stay at the top of the game we need to learn from our past experiences, change the practices that were not accepted well among our users and be proactive when receiving results of analytical tests and user feedback. This is the only way to constantly ensure the highest quality of our services.

## 4. Tailoring services to user preferences
We strive to get inside the mind of an average user and in order to do so, we need to make tests, surveys and be constantly on alert to see how the users react to our product. By doing so, we are able to tailor our product to user’s preferences and achieve our goal our goal to establish a gold standard in modern primary health care standards.

In order to ensure the same level of commitment on the side of our partners on the OneStop Health™ Service, we encourage our partners to follow our best practice guide when offering their service via OneStop Health™ Platform.

We encourage our partners to follow our best practice guide when offering their service via OneStop Health™ Platform

Your.MD's Partnership Promise

Your.MD Partnership Promise


Your.MD grabbed me when I met the founder, Henrik B Pettersen. Henrik, is a former banker with an infectious dream: to **help one billion people be healthier and happier**.

He knew that **smartphones** were the key to giving every human being **safe**, **simple** and **actionable health advice**. So he founded Your.MD at the end of 2012 on a whim, then launched a basic informational app in 2014.

I met Henrik at the end of 2014 in London at Scalini, his favourite Italian restaurant. Within minutes I was completely hooked on the idea. I immediately started working on what I thought would be the main challenges of getting such an ambitious project off the ground and scaled up.

## Challenge One: Technology

The first issue was proving that software could safely and correctly identify the ‘**best next steps**’ for anyone with a medical question or problem.

Nobody had done it before so we had to be creative.

I called up Mario Alemi PhD, a friend, former colleague and shining star at CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research) with a passion for AI.

We locked ourselves in an office and we emerged two weeks later with the idea of a **chatbot powered by smart algorithms** as the best way to dispense personalised health advice to people.

I spent my first year with Your.MD proving that our AI-based approach could work. And it did.

In early 2016 we commissioned an independent assessment of our system and the results were great: the tech worked really well. You could **very quickly** input a few **basic parameters** around your health and the chatbot would **direct** you in the **right way**. We also demonstrated that the platform could be scaled up to a very large user-base.

We had our first challenge solved.

## Challenge Two: The Business Model

The second hurdle was the business model: without a good business model your chances of success are very slim. Even with a great piece of tech, without a solid financial engine, the future looks grim.

We explored a **simple idea**: if we succeeded in giving valuable (and safe) health advice to people, could we then help them **discover relevant products and services** that could improve their health?

The **Amazon of Healthcare** does not exist yet, as far as I can see!
We launched Your.MD’s health marketplace in 2016 and gave it a cool name: **OneStop Health™**.

More than **100 providers** of high quality products/apps and services have been vetted and onboarded to OneStopHealth™ so far. We’ve measured the engagement and the results are very encouraging: we significantly 
**outperform Google** and users find our recommendations **very helpful**.

The second challenge was solved.

## Challenge Three: Trust

In most business sectors, having great tech combined with a working and scalable business model is enough to ‘press the accelerator’ and start growing.

**Not in healthcare**. In healthcare you need a magical and elusive ingredient — **trust**.

Without trust, a healthcare product has zero chance of success. Zero.

As a startup in the nascent field of digital health-tech, Your.MD was starting from an incredibly difficult position as it was pitting the public’s trust of a doctor against a new and unheard of technology.

For the best part of 2017 we decided to invest a **considerable amount of resources** into building a trust framework. This is what we did:

* We were one of the first to establish a [**clinical advisory and governance board**](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/yourmd-announces-the-appointment-of-its-clinical-advisory-board-300594548.html) with senior and independent clinicians tasked with supervising and advising our clinical safety policies.

* We decided to pursue European Certification as a Medical Device (class 1), also known as a [**CE mark**](/legal/cemark), even if it was not required by law.

* We appointed an independent auditor and supervisor for our data security policies and achieved the [**ePrivacy seal**](/about).

* We became **fully GDPR compliant** on the first day GDPR came into force.

I think we’ve invested in trust more than most other companies in this space and we are continuously working on new initiatives which will mark us out as leading in this field.

Building trust is a slow and complex task. As the saying goes: “Trust comes on foot but leaves on horseback!”. Patience and walking the talk are key.

This investment has paid off quickly though, as trust is the **central point in discussions** we are having with every external partner.

Challenge three will always be with us but the building blocks are in place.

## Challenge Four: Partnership

One key insight we learned while solving the first three challenges is that healthcare products — physical or digital — are seldom **chosen** and most often **given** or **recommended** by a trusted source (a doctor or someone you know and trust).

In the past, TV could help with that: ‘As seen on TV!’ was the quick path to trust. Not anymore.

In 2018, I had a chance encounter with a senior executive from RB, the leading global consumer healthcare and home hygiene company.

The more we talked, the more we realised that we shared a very similar vision to ‘**help people take health into their own hands**’ and we also shared the same values of **safety**, **integrity** and **putting customers at the core** of everything we do.

It was a serendipitous and very important moment for Your.MD.

Other startups in our space traditionally seek investments from venture capitalists (VCs) — the most readily available option — or from corporate venture arms of multinationals that have set aside a pot of money for more risky investments.

I was concerned about the traditional funding routes though, as I had a strong feeling that in order for Your.MD to break into the market we needed **much more than cash** — we needed someone with **trust to help us introduce our service to users**.

We needed the equivalent of ‘As seen on TV!’ for the digital age.

Twelve months later, after a lot of work, meetings, discussions, negotiations and very thorough technical, clinical and legal due diligence we sealed an **incredibly exciting partnership** and investment agreement which unites **RB** and **Your.MD** in the effort to help everyone in the world be healthier.

Together we will endeavour to **establish pre-primary care** to help people find the best healthcare options for them. In particular, around **self-care, the biggest untapped opportunity**.

The four challenges are now resolved and I now look forward to **exciting** and **healthier times** for everyone!

Matteo


Your.MD grabbed me when I met the founder, Henrik B Pettersen. Henrik, is a former banker with an infectious dream: to help one billion people be healthier and happier. He knew that smartphones were…

Phone screen, and the RB logo with the Your.MD logo

Health is an information problem. 400 million people without access to healthcare need authoritative, trustworthy and actionable information as a priority. At the same time, millions of health workers in rural and urban communities need robust clinical support.

This growing ‘knowledge gap’ can only be addressed with a systemic approach driven by personal AI-powered digital healthcare services like Your.MD. 

For decades, innovation in healthcare has focused on modern industrial societies, prioritised technically-advanced hospitals and payment through traditional service models. Modern healthcare systems work tirelessly to reassure the mother of a feverish child, the middle-aged man with heartburn and the declining pensioner.

Technology rarely considers how to alleviate the anguish of a Nigerian mother whose child is a day’s walk from a doctor or how to bring reassurance in Bangladesh where there is 1 doctor to care for every 10,000 souls.

Dr Margaret Chan, the former Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2008 said: “We see a mother suffering the complications of labour without access to qualified support, a child missing out on essential vaccinations, an inner-city slum dweller living in squalor. These and many other everyday realities of life personify the unacceptable and avoidable shortfalls in the performance of our health systems.”

At Your.MD, we think the creation of a technically-enabled pre-primary care health sector can help to change this. In so doing, we aim to help the WHO deliver the 4 cornerstones of global health reform it identified in its 2008 report *Primary Health Care - Now More than Ever*:

- Universal Coverage
- Service Delivery Reforms
- Leadership
- Public Policy Reforms

The WHO believes the world has been unable to mobilise the resources and institutions needed to transform health. This has led to the gap between healthcare systems and the people they were designed to serve increasing instead of narrowing. This goes against the WHO’s 1978 Declaration of Alma-Ata that called for health equity, person-centred care and a central role for communities in health.
 
Pre-primary care can deliver the Alma-Ata declaration by providing free healthcare assessment, information and access to trusted services for everyone, forever. This is the basis of the Your.MD model that’s already used by millions around the world.
 
Pre-primary care’s goal will be to provide global parity in healthcare assessment, knowledge and personalised care centred in the community – free personalised healthcare for 1 billion people is Your.MD’s goal. 
![Universal health coverage](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/2juFjycBdmFFSk4EiZ0T8g/d49f00cce6e329d3dc7dbfd65879a850/universal-health-coverage.jpg)
## Digital universal health coverage
By opening up every citizen’s personal health black box with the assistance of AI, the global population can access a baseline of health knowledge and understanding via a mobile phone. The training and knowledge that is usually associated with a medical degree can be universally delivered. 

This represents a step change similar to the mass adoption of mobile money transfer in Africa or the introduction of printing.
People are increasingly impatient with the inability of health services to deliver levels of national coverage that meet stated demands and changing needs, and with their failure to provide services in ways that correspond to their expectations. 

Few would disagree that health systems need to respond better – and faster – to the challenges of a changing world. Pre-primary care can do that. It can maximise equity and solidarity, give everyone the right to an attainable high level of baseline health assessment, care, information and be responsive to people’s needs.

The WHO believes that, left to their own devices, health systems do not naturally move towards goals of health for all through primary healthcare, as articulated in the Declaration of Alma-Ata. Health systems are developing in directions that contribute little to equity and social justice, and fail to get the best health outcomes for their money.
![Putting people first in healthcare](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/3H8FARwd6rir1fXgWgfLsU/f46340961271fa05684cf532e35eb5b0/healthcare-putting-people-first.jpg)
## Putting people first
There is substantial evidence on the comparative advantages, in terms of effectiveness and efficiency, of person-centred care. Its characteristic features are: personalisation, holistic assessment, proactive intervention, comprehensiveness, integration, continuity and the participation of patients, families and communities.

Your.MD can provide all these characteristics, and in collaboration with respected partners like RB it can add authority and credibility. 
 
The evidence from numerous studies is that people are more willing and able to care for themselves if they are confident, reassured and certain of support. Studies from around the world demonstrate that close to 75% of all primary care consultations are appropriate for self-care and resulted in health professionals providing little more than reassurance, information or non-prescription drugs.
 
Data from the WHO’s World Health Surveys, covering 18 low-income countries, show low coverage of the treatment of [asthma](/condition/asthma), [arthritis](/condition/arthritis), [angina](/condition/angina), [diabetes](/condition/diabetes) and [depression](/condition/depression), and of the screening for [cervical](/condition/cancer-of-the-cervix) and [breast cancer](/condition/breast-cancer-screening): less than 15% in the lowest income quintile and less than 25% in the highest. 

Your.MD can significantly enhance people’s understanding of the probability and risk of all these conditions with its personalised and confidential approach.
![Healthcare professional with patient](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/6MthRjXTxs4lx2Td6AKnSn/ff25b99a1a844f749f561c28f76a301d/healthcare-professional-with-patient.jpg)
## Digital continuity of care
Comprehensiveness, continuity and personalisation are critical to better health outcomes. They all depend on a stable, long-term, personal relationship between the population and the professionals who are their entry point to the health system. Most ambulatory care in conventional settings is not organised to build such relationships - but digital pre-primary care is.

Information and communication technologies like Your.MD enable people in remote and underserved areas to have access to services and expertise otherwise unavailable to them, especially in countries with uneven distribution or chronic shortages of doctors, nurses and health technicians, or where access to facilities and expert advice requires travel over long distances. 

The internet is a key factor in its success, as is offline content.

A further benefit of using information and communication technologies in pre-primary care services is the improved quality of care. Healthcare providers are not only striving to deliver more effective care, they are also striving to deliver safer care. 

Tools, such as electronic health records, computerised prescribing systems and clinical decision aids like Your.MD will support practitioners in providing safer care in a range of settings.

As the costs of delivering healthcare continue to rise, information and communication technologies are providing new avenues for personalised, citizen-centred and home-centred care. 

Clinicians who want to promote health and prevent illness in international organisations see how Your.MD can be the place to go for health advice to complement or replace the need to seek the advice of a health professional in the first place. 

New digital applications, services and access to information will permanently alter the relationships between consumers and health professionals, putting knowledge directly into people’s hands.
![Transforming healthcare](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/2znezzdm1j3kYvEU6QzaW2/ea505ec1d8fc62a94245b43dc7d555f4/digital-transformation-technology-healthcare.jpg)
## Scaling digital pre-primary care
In some countries, a large part of the population lives in extremely deprived areas with absent or dysfunctional healthcare infrastructure. Such patterns occur in low-income countries such as Bangladesh, Chad and Niger. 

In other parts of the world the challenge is providing health support to widely dispersed populations, for example small island states, remote deserts and mountainous regions.
 
Providing healthcare in these regions requires grappling with the economics of service provision over vast areas. Elsewhere, countries like Colombia, Nicaragua and Turkey have well-organised systems that can’t be used by large sections of the population because of the risk of catastrophic bills.

As a result, in urban and increasingly in the rural areas of many low and middle-income countries – from India and Vietnam to sub-Saharan Africa – much healthcare for the poor is  provided by small-scale, largely unregulated and often unlicensed providers, both commercial and not-for-profit.

Often, they work alongside dysfunctional public services and capture an overwhelmingly large part of the healthcare market, while the health promotion and prevention agenda is totally ignored. 
![Healthcare in rural areas](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/5LoRltwWQwMrNIISOPu8WL/02db1cc9927ebdf9f663cfdac82616a7/healthcare-in-rural-areas.jpg)
### Promoting universal coverage
Vested interest makes the promotion of universal coverage more difficult in these circumstances than in areas where the challenge is to build healthcare delivery networks from scratch. 

Pre-primary care delivered by companies like Your.MD with ethical principles and values can challenge this way of doing things.
 
Health planners face a strategic dilemma in these areas: whether to prioritise massive scale up of a limited intervention or a progressive roll-out of a more comprehensive system.

Pre-primary care, enabled by Your.MD, provides an alternative approach for health planners that facilitates scaling and roll-out. Ethiopia has deployed thousands of health workers to provide a limited package of preventive care. Armed with Your.MD, that same package could be extended and the scope could be personalised and education spread. 

In Iran, where primary care is being rolled out, the communities waiting could have coverage provided by Your.MD in the interim. Your.MD can place healthcare physically within reach of both urban and rural populations with its online and offline approach.
![Female doctor with a stethoscope](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/z2Zgzu6rkkJLZnDfldunR/e1567a637de56f098495eb46eaafde12/female-doctor-with-a-stethoscope.jpg)
## The way forward
People want effective healthcare when they are sick or injured. They want it to come from providers with the integrity to act in their best interests.

The demand for competence is not trivial: it fuels the health economy with steadily increasing demand for professional care (doctors, nurses and other non-physician clinicians who play an increasing role in both industrialised and developing countries). For example, throughout the world, women are switching from the use of traditional birth attendants to midwives, doctors and obstetricians.

However, this trend is unsustainable, and the WHO estimates the world needs to train 2.6 million more doctors and 9 million nurses and midwives to meet current demand. 

The world has underestimated the speed with which the transition in demand from traditional caregivers to professional care would bypass attempts to provide access to healthcare via non-professional ‘community health workers’.

Talk to the doctor services exacerbate this demand rather than alleviate it by placing doctors in call centres and increasing access instead of appropriately prioritising it.

Pre-primary care can stem this unsustainable shift to professional care only by placing trustworthy, authoritative and actionable information into the hands of every citizen to encourage personal accountability and responsibility. 
![Boy on mobile phone](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/oRgZYxxmRyCdtrDuM1lNV/a3779349525c67f9ea93384ea8d55563/boy-in-india-on-mobile-phone.jpg)
### How Your.MD can help
Technologies like Your.MD can transform the information given by lay workers and ‘power users’ from poor to average to good.

Citizens in the developing world, like those in wealthy countries, are not looking for technical competence alone, they also want healthcare providers to be understanding, respectful and trustworthy. They want healthcare to be organised around their needs, respectful of their beliefs and sensitive to their particular situation in life. They do not want to be taken advantage of by unscrupulous providers. 

Your.MD’s vetting of services can provide reassurance and certainty, and its extensible framework can provide information in different languages and culturally-appropriate information. 

This journey will begin later this year with the mass translation of our health content into Hindi - the first small step on our journey to help 1 billion people find their health.

[[Info]]
|If you’re interested in supporting Your.MD’s digital pre-primary care campaign, contact Jonathon Carr-Brown, Your.MD’s Director of Operations, via JCB@Your.MD.

---

  
__References:__

WHO | New report shows that 400 million do not have access to essential health services [Internet]. Who.int. 2020 [cited 5 February 2020]. Available [here](http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2015/uhc-report/en/).  

Global strategy on human resources for health: Workforce 2030 [Internet]. World Health Organization. 2020 [cited 5 February 2020]. Available [here](http://www.who.int/hrh/resources/pub_globstrathrh-2030/en/).  

[Internet]. Who.int. 2020 [cited 5 February 2020]. Available [here](http://www.who.int/whr/2008/08_overview_en.pdf).  

Pillay N, Tisman A, Kent T, Gregson J. The economic burden of minor ailments on the National Health Service in the UK - Selfcare Journal [Internet]. Selfcare Journal. 2020 [cited 5 February 2020]. Available [here](http://selfcarejournal.com/article/the-economic-burden-of-minor-ailments-on-the-national-health-service-in-the-uk/).

Prenissl J, Manne-Goehler J, Jaacks L, Prabhakaran D, Awasthi A, Bischops A et al. Hypertension screening, awareness, treatment, and control in India: A nationally representative cross-sectional study among individuals aged 15 to 49 years. 2020. Available [here](http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002405).  

L G. Trust and the development of health care as a social institution. - PubMed - NCBI [Internet]. Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. 2020 [cited 5 February 2020]. Available [here](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12614697). 

Find out why pre-primary care is the biggest opportunity to improve healthcare, in the latest blog from Your.MD. 


Pre-primary care is the biggest opportunity to improve healthcare

Trust is at the heart of Your.MD’s mission. In healthcare, nothing works without trust.  

Transparency and openness are vital elements of trust, and in that spirit we would like to share how we follow the NHS England’s new [Code of Conduct for Data-Driven Health Technology](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/code-of-conduct-for-data-driven-health-and-care-technology/initial-code-of-conduct-for-data-driven-health-and-care-technology#Principle-1/).

The code has 10 principles:

## 1. Understand users, their needs and the context
Your.MD is for everyone over the age of 16 who doesn’t have a chronic, complex, or rare condition. Our chatbot service is good at identifying minor ailments and injuries and understating if your reported symptoms suggest you should seek help from a doctor. We want to make people happier by guiding them to better health.

## 2.  Define the outcome and how the technology will contribute to it
Your.MD wants to relieve pressure on primary care in developed countries and provide high quality health information for people in low and middle-income countries. We provide personalised assessments of symptoms if you are normally healthy and guide you in what to do next. We were one of the first services to achieve the accreditation of [CE Medical Device Class 1](/legal/cemark).

## 3.  Use data that is in line with appropriate guidelines for the purpose for which it is being used
You can use our services without disclosing any data that could personally identify you, for example, without the need to share your full name or email. Your.MD does not observe, monitor or control individual users and we do not carry out [behavioural advertising](https://www.trustarc.com/consumer-privacy/about-oba/). Your.MD adheres to the [Data Protection Act 2018](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/contents/enacted), and we have an independent Data Protection Officer to review and approve our processes.

## 4.  Be fair, transparent and accountable about what data is being used
We use the principle of ‘data minimisation’, which means we only collect data that can help you get a better service from us. We will not share any data that could personally identify you with third parties and you can request your data to be deleted or downloaded at any time directly in our app.

## 5. Make use of open standards
Your.MD’s service has been built using the latest open standards for information, data collection, clinical safety and interoperability.

## 6. Be transparent about the limitations of the data used and algorithms deployed
Our AI draws upon a medical database that is constantly being reviewed and refined by Your.MD’s team of doctors. The information in the database, which is drawn from peer reviewed papers in medical journals, is then audited by a reputable independent organisation.

Our focus is to help you evaluate what you should consider doing to improve your health or when you are worried about certain symptoms. It’s important you understand that we are NOT trying to replace a doctor. We’re not providing a diagnosis, so you should always visit a doctor if you’re in doubt or if your symptoms get worse or don’t improve. You should always call emergency services in case of an emergency.

## 7. Show what type of algorithm is being developed or deployed, the ethical examination of how the data is used, how its performance will be validated, and how it will be integrated into health and care provision

Your.MD is based on an algorithm which uses probability to calculate the likelihood of an event according to the latest medical knowledge. Ethical aspects are addressed in the modelling of the medical data. The output of the algorithm is then used to advise you on what your best next steps are. We only ask for data we need to carry out this task. We validate the algorithm using extensive automated testing. Your.MD is currently not integrated with any healthcare providers.

## 8. Generate evidence of effectiveness for the intended use and value for money  
Your.MD is working with the [International Telecommunications Union](https://www.itu.int/en/Pages/default.aspx), a specialised agency of the United Nations responsible for issues that concern information and communication technologies, and a leading British university to conduct a study which will assess Your.MD’s clinical safety and economic impact.

## 9. Make security integral to the design  
We process data in a manner that complies with the GDPR and the Data Protection Act. We comply with the Medical Device Regulations. Our data security is independently audited by a [third party](https://www.eprivacy.eu/en/home/) and we conduct regular penetration tests.

## 10. Define the commercial strategy
Your.MD is currently committed to making its service free to everyone in the world.

Our commercial strategy is centred around our health marketplace, OneStop Health™, a directory of vetted products and services which can help users worldwide find and select the most suitable solutions for their health issues.


Trust is at the heart of Your.MD’s mission. Find out how Your.MD adheres to the NHS Code of Conduct for data-driven health technology.

How Your.MD delivers on the NHS' Code of Conduct


A cursory flick through the Google Play store is enough to reveal an increasingly crowded marketplace. There’s a mobile app for just about everything, and each has to fight for its survival.

With so many apps available, user expectations have shifted to the point where enhanced interactivity and a personalised experience must form part of the standard service offering. 

If an app doesn’t make the grade, it will likely be discarded without a second thought in favour of something which does meet the individual needs of the user. This level of expectation is no different for users of medical chatbots and health-monitoring tools.


## Our Vision

The journey towards effortless personalisation for the user is an exciting one. But this tends to come with a trade-off, as insights derived from demographic, contextual, and behavioural data are necessary to smooth the path to personalisation. 

For many app users the question then becomes, how much of my data am I willing to trade to benefit from a personalised experience?

Any Your.MD app users concerned about how their personal data is used should know that earlier this year we granted all users full access to the app without having to sign in via Google, Facebook, or email.


# youtube:FgFRvy9k4z8

> But this tends to come with a trade-off, as insights derived from demographic, contextual, and behavioural data are necessary to smooth the path to

But that's not all. Following hot on its heels is another product milestone, one that moves Your.MD further along in the journey towards personalisation. This latest milestone, newly-achieved, promises to deliver a superior experience for our users. 

But how?


## What’s new
We’ve recently rolled out changes to our Android app which allow us to look into the health history of the user and provide more personalised information. We can also track a user’s symptoms and give alerts when it might be time to consult a doctor.

Android app users can now source relevant health information more quickly by providing information about their health background during a consultation routine. They can confirm if they have or don't have asthma, high blood pressure or diabetes, for example, and if any past or current habits may affect their health, like smoking.

If the user answers questions related to their health background in their profile, this information will be stored and taken into consideration during any future consultation, where the user will benefit from more tailored questions. 

These users will also benefit from more relevant answers in consultations, as the chatbot will draw on any health background information it has to formulate a response.


## Better accuracy, better outcomes
Outcomes for the user will be more accurate and relevant once they fill in their health background. For users who create a profile, their health background information can be stored alongside basic information. Any relevant details will then be included in a report the user receives following a consultation.  

The more our chatbot knows about a user's health background, the more relevant and accurate its responses to the user's questions. Put simply, when the app has a better picture of your overall health it can offer more personalised information.

Our focus moving forward is to advance the app’s capacity for personalisation, and for it to evolve in line with user expectations. Stay tuned for future updates.

[[SC]]
|#### Health background
|
|
|Fill in your health background for a more personalised experience
|
|[Create your profile](https://go.onelink.me/941508217/5110fbb3)


Your.MD is personalising health outcomes for users of its Android app. Find out how to take control of your health with Your.MD.


We’re really excited to announce a new feature, which gives users of our Your.MD Android App the ability to track their symptoms in the app. 

Our first version enables you to track any of the six most common symptoms that users present with, including:

* Headaches
* Abdominal pain
* Back pain
* Coughing
* Nausea
* Dizziness

By tracking your symptoms you can see how they change over time and the patterns that emerge. The app will also provide you with personalised information depending on how your symptoms are changing, which helps you make better decisions about your health.  

Given the positive response we’ve had to this release we plan to expand this functionality. 

## How does it work?

Once you finish a consultation with our chatbot, it will determine whether it might be useful for you to track your symptoms and offer this to you accordingly. 

![Three phones showing the chatbot symptom tracker feature](images/symptom-tracking-with-yourmd/symptom_tracking_chat_signup.png)

If you already know you want to track your symptoms and you don’t want to do a consultation, you can simply visit your profile page, go to health trackers and slide the toggles for any symptoms you wish to track. On this page you can also sync your data from other fitness apps.

![Three phones showing the toggle feature](images/symptom-tracking-with-yourmd/symptom_tracking_health_tracker.png)

On the input page for each symptom, we’ve also created a “When to Worry” button. This will bring up further information about the symptom you’re tracking and in what situations you might need to see a doctor urgently. We’ve also added the option to receive daily reminders, to help make sure you don’t miss a day.

![Three phones showing the homefeed of the symptom tracker](images/symptom-tracking-with-yourmd/symptom_tracking_homefeed.png)

## What are the benefits of tracking your symptoms?

Tracking your symptoms has a number of benefits. For some conditions, it can be useful to have a record of your symptoms to help you see how they have changed over time, like with a headache diary. 

The app will monitor your symptoms and provide you with personalised information based on how your individual symptoms are changing over time, to help you make the best decisions for your health.

## How do we intend to improve this feature?

In future releases, we plan to provide you with more symptoms that you can track and make it easier for you to track them by re-designing the profile and health tracker sections of the app. 

We hope to include a comments section to help you recognise patterns and help avoid triggers for your symptoms. For example you might notice you get headaches on days where you’ve eaten cheese or chocolate (or both!).

We’re also always improving our AI’s ability to give real time, personalised information to help you manage your symptoms.

We’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas about how we can improve this feature so that we can offer you the most useful information and more personalised insights.

To try this new feature or to download the Android app, [visit here](https://app.appsflyer.com/md.your?pid=website&c=blog)


We’re excited to announce a new feature, which gives users of our Your.MD Android App the ability to track their symptoms in the app. Read about how it works and why it might be useful for you.

Symptom Tracking with Your.MD

## Starting today, we have a new name - and a new look. 

### Our name

We’ve changed our name from Your.MD to Healthily. That’s because what started as a pioneering AI symptom checker is now an award-winning, all-round self-care app. Downloaded by millions around the world, Healthily brings together everything you need to look after your health with confidence.

### Our look

We want to bring health back into everyday life - a vision which drives our new look. We’ve changed our logo from a stethoscope, modelling it after a carbon atom instead. That’s because carbon is the universal building block for life.

![Carbon Gif](//downloads.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/7pCHuGy4cY6RbfnrZIkKWi/bf0ef0c24d09920c2a31bcbc21fe0b7b/carbon3.gif)

We’ve filled the carbon structure with a unique combination of colour and shapes, because your life - all of our lives - are unique.

# youtube:8uIzNQUO_io

And just as our lives are unique, so is our health. We all have different experiences. We all look after ourselves in different ways.
![Healthily logos](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/5PCKXNk2qAn1leVxEtqTPn/8b134878566d8e3e237652e25b673067/700x994_GFX.png)

To do what’s right for us, we need an app we can trust, whatever our situation.

We need Healthily.

We’re on a mission to help 1 billion people find their health by living Healthily. 

### What does living Healthily mean?
Living Healthily means taking your own personal path to better all-round health. Our logo helps shine a light on how this works. The six pillars of our logo each represent a vital feature of our app:![Healthily logo Gif](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/4lkqNsDbvy3nQ4Yhn58NHA/069666479d2a300601ec573af2ff8bb5/logo__1_.gif)

Healthily helps you manage 100s of conditions, check your symptoms, track your progress and much more. From deciding when to see a doctor, to making small changes to feel better every day, Healthily keeps you company every step of the way. 

![Healthily Posters Final-1 copy](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/1DjQZ1kLfiA1EVvGHoBu9Y/622085d7528b3ee2c83d7c9e2984dbc9/Healthily_Posters_Final-1_copy.jpg)

Join millions of people already living Healthily today. Follow us on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/thehealthilyapp) for daily self-care tips.
![Healthily phone](//images.ctfassets.net/iqo3fk8od6t9/1RrolXm9ZxdaHAIWGHYvAd/2dc33e0facae19497d1eeaf0d332c7ea/Healthily.png)

Live Healthily: Our brand has a bright new look

__PRESS RELEASE__ 

23 July 2020 – LONDON
- __Imperial College London researchers and global self-care platform Your.MD team up to map symptoms of people with self-reported mild or moderate COVID-19.__
- __The mapper helps people compare coronavirus symptoms worldwide and against global norms.__
- __Unique data collection will help researchers better understand symptom “unknowns”.__ 

Researchers from [Imperial College London](https://www.imperial.ac.uk/medicine/) have joined forces with global self-care app and website [Healthily](https://www.livehealthily.com) to map the spread of coronavirus with the launch of the Healthily/Your.MD [COVID-19 Symptom Mapper](https://covid19.your.md/) which compares, analyses and maps reported symptoms worldwide to help produce a [set of global norms](/coronavirus-symptoms-data-update).

The mapper has had more than 140,000 respondents from 181 countries worldwide. It works by pulling together data from people experiencing COVID-19-type symptoms around the world to allow them to compare themselves, their illness and their symptoms with others of the same gender or in a similar area or age bracket.

Your.MD is sharing the anonymised symptom data with Imperial to help Imperial’s research team map the pandemic and better understand how the disease is affecting people around the world. The cross-disciplinary collaboration is led by Aldo Faisal, Director of the Centre in AI for Healthcare, and his colleagues Drs Ceire Costelloe, Austen El-Osta and Mansour Taghavi Azar Sharabiani from the School of Public Health, all at Imperial.

The aim is to collect self-reported population data from people who have either already tested positive for COVID-19, or believe they have symptoms of the virus but have not been tested.

Your.MD and the Imperial team hope to collect enough data from each country to help researchers better understand how the virus affects people who have not been admitted to hospital. 

Imperial’s Dr Faisal said of the mapper: 

“COVID has rapidly accelerated and transformed the way we are thinking and doing digital healthcare and the Your.MD COVID-19 Symptom Mapper is 1 of the many ways we are doing so.” 

Professor Maureen Baker, Your.MD’s Chief Medical Officer and former RCGP chair, added: 

"The data from the Your.MD's COVID-19 Symptom Mapper tracks symptoms globally, giving a unique perspective on the virus and allowing comparisons to be made between the UK and other countries. 

“It is vitally important for us to continue collecting data on symptoms of COVID-19, particularly as there are so many unknowns about the clinical course of this illness.”  

The mapper will gather valuable data on COVID-19 which will also be shared with national governments to help map the outbreak.

The new tool can help users assess whether they have mild, moderate or severe symptoms and to understand how their symptoms compare with other people around the world.

As more people use the tool, the information gathered will be used to make detailed comparisons about how COVID-19 is affecting different countries and communities.

The COVID-19 Symptom Mapper asks users to input details including when they first experienced symptoms, and score the severity of a range of symptoms associated with COVID-19. 

The Your.MD COVID-19 Symptom Mapper is free and can be used on iOS and Android phones.

__ENDS__

----------

#### For further information please contact:
- Sarah Bradnum, ZPB Associates: sarah.bradnum@zpb-associates.com, 07887421304

#### About Your.MD
Your.MD is a digital health platform committed to helping everyone in the world find their health through informed self-care, bringing together the tools you need to look after your all-round health. Your.MD are the makers of [Healthily](/app), a free app that helps you assess, learn, track, discuss, discover and manage your way to better health. 

The only self-care app registered as a Class 1 Medical Device, Healthily aims to help a billion people find their health through informed self-care.

__Healthily platform tools:__

1. __ASSESS__: Our friendly chatbot helps you decide if you need to see a doctor. Tell it how you feel and its Augmented Intelligence recommends the best next steps for your symptoms – including self-care for issues you can treat at home. 
2. __LEARN:__ Our Health Library, sourced from the UK’s National Health Service, completed by our own medical team, is the simplest, safest and most comprehensive in the world. Includes the up-to-date guidance and information on coronavirus (COVID-19). 
3. __TRACK:__ Our user-friendly, secure health journal and symptom trackers help you keep track of your health and store notes, in complete privacy. 
4. __DISCOVER:__ We’ve created OneStop Health™ Marketplace, the first vetted directory of healthcare products and services offered by other companies. So you can speak to a doctor, find a medicine or discover the best apps for you.
5. __MANAGE:__ We’re also building self-care hubs to help you manage and improve specific health areas or conditions. Our first 2 hubs, on sleep and general wellbeing, put together by our medical team, are completely free. 

#### Healthily COVID tools:

1. [__COVID-19 symptom mapper__](https://covid19.your.md): a tool developed with Imperial College of London that helps people compare their symptoms against global norms, gathering valuable data to share with academic and public health organisations to help #stopthespread. Over half a million site visits within a week of launch.
2. __[Coronavirus risk assessment](/coronavirus/quiz/coronavirus-risk-assessment):__ A quick check to see if you’re currently at risk of developing coronavirus. 
3. __[Coronavirus hub](/coronavirus/summary):__ We’ve created a hub where you can find up-to-date facts and guidance in 1 place. Misinformation is a real issue and we ensure all our content, and any we signpost to, is medically validated.
4. __[Daily drop-in](/daily-drop-in/latest):__ A daily round-up of the best medically validated articles and resources from around the web to help you stay healthy while staying at home. 

#### About Imperial College London 
Imperial College London is one of the world's leading universities. The College's 17,000 students and 8,000 staff are expanding the frontiers of knowledge in science, medicine, engineering and business, and translating their discoveries into benefits for our society.

Imperial is the UK's most international university, according to Times Higher Education, with academic ties to more than 150 countries. Reuters named the College as the UK's most innovative university because of its exceptional entrepreneurial culture and ties to industry.

<http://www.imperial.ac.uk/>  

Imperial College London researchers and Your.MD team up to map symptoms of people with self-reported mild or moderate COVID-19 from around the world. 


Global self-care technology platform Your.MD teams up with Imperial College London researchers to map COVID-19 symptoms

Recent data suggests that the coronavirus pandemic has affected the numbers of people seeking care from health care providers for conditions other than COVID-19. Visits to both emergency rooms and primary care providers have fallen since March.

But as people put a hold on face-to-face care, there’s a clear opportunity for them to experience the benefits of Artificial Intelligence (AI) healthcare, particularly chatbots that provide personalised health and treatment information at no cost to the user.

AI chatbots are already a popular choice among people seeking care for conditions they may feel uncomfortable speaking to a doctor about, such as sexual health issues. 

And as people increasingly turn to these services, Your.MD can offer a complete solution for people to maintain good sexual health as we embrace a new normal.

## 360-degree approach to sexual health

Your.MD offers a comprehensive 360-degree approach to sexual health in __just 4 steps__.  

Firstly, we use AI to gain specific insights about the user’s concern. This allows us to provide personalised advice before sharing resources and further information on health concerns that may be causing the issue. 

Once this information has been shared, we signpost users to partners who can help them take appropriate action.

[[Info]]
|### 1. __Assess__
|The Your.MD Self-Assessment Tool provides an anonymous and ‘virtual’ private consultation in which you can discuss any symptoms you have or ask a question relating to your health concern with our chatbot. 
|
|
|The chatbot will flag any possible sexual health problem based on the information provided.

[[Info]]
|### 2. __Learn__
|After using the Self-Assessment Tool, you can learn more about  any possible conditions or health issues highlighted in your consultation using our medically-validated Health A-Z library. 
|
|
|You don’t have to perform a self-assessment before using the library, so you can go straight to the A-Z to look up symptoms of conditions you’re already aware of or concerned about.

[[Info]]
|### 3. __Test your knowledge__
|You can also take one of several sexual health quizzes and tests available in our chatbot. 
|
|
|These can help you gain insight into topics such as what type of contraception to use, or your risk of contracting HIV.

[[Info]]
|### 4. __Take appropriate action__
|Your.MD partners with a wide range of vetted healthcare providers to help you take action if any health concerns that require treatment or further advice are raised during your consultation.  
|
|
|You can: 
|
|- __Request a free STI test: get tested__ -- with sexual health services like, who provide free STI tests you can do at home via post.
|- __Access prescription medications__ -- provided by online pharmacies such as HealthExpress.
|-  __Get support__ -- through sexual health charities like Brook, where you can access further information or book an appointment to see a doctor or nurse.
|- __Protect yourself__  -- with products  such as Durex, who also provide information on HIV and STI prevention as well as contraceptives.

For your safety, Your.MD is created by doctors and is registered as a Medical Device Class I with the Medical & Health Registration Authority.

-------

__Useful links:__
- [SH:24](https://sh24.org.uk/)
- [Brook](https://www.brook.org.uk/)
- [HealthExpress](https://www.healthexpress.co.uk/)
- [Durex](https://www.durex.co.uk/blogs/explore-sex/tagged/sexual-health-advice)
- [Healthily Sexual Health Hub](/health-library/sexual-health)
- [Healthily COVID-19 Symptom Mapper](https://covid19.your.md/?utm_source=yourmd&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=/blog/the-new-normal-health-apps-as-a-gateway-to-vital-sexual-health-services)

AI chatbots are a popular choice for people seeking care for sexual health issues, and Your.MD now offers a complete solution for people to maintain good sexual health in just 4 steps. 


BMJ Best Practice will apply their unique experience in evidence-based medical information to validate the medical data used by Your.MD’s AI symptom checker.

London, 24 May 2018

BMJ Best Practice, ranked one of the best clinical decision support tools for health professionals worldwide, has entered into a strategic partnership with Your.MD, an evidence-based AI platform designed to help people find personalised and safe health information online, for the independent validation of their medical data models.

The team at BMJ Best Practice has extensive experience in the sourcing, reviewing and validating of the latest clinical evidence which has been at the heart of the Best Practice service for the medical profession worldwide for over a decade.

Your.MD has developed an AI platform designed to understand the individual probability of any individual to suffer from a condition, to provide safe health information and direct users towards vetted providers of products or services that can help them.

A crucial and growing challenge for emergent AI systems is the ability to demonstrate the safety and transparency of their algorithms, data and information. The lack of an existing regulatory framework for AI Health services poses clear risks for users and potential partner companies interested in leveraging these promising solutions.

Your.MD, the company that has been defining the space of direct-to-users AI health systems since the launch of its first AI Health Chatbot in November 2015, has always placed safety and transparency at the core of its strategy and decided to follow a self-regulatory approach based on external third-party validations:

* The AI algorithms developed by Your.MD have been reviewed and assessed by Optimity Advisors, a leading international health consultancy and Professor Maarten de Vos, Director of Oxford Biodesign at the University of Oxford;
* The medical data used by the AI algorithms are now going to be validated by BMJ Best Practice;
* The information provided to end-users is based on content licensed from NHS Choices;
* The processes used by Your.MD to deliver the service follow the NHS clinical safety guidelines and are certified (CE Mark).

BMJ Best Practice is clearly the ideal partner for Your.MD given their unique experience and trust in the market in validating evidence-based medical data.

Sharon Cooper, Chief Digital Officer of BMJ commented: “Personalised medicine is fundamental to the future of healthcare, and I expect AI to play an essential role in delivering a healthcare service to everyone, everywhere, but the challenges in ensuring a safe, trusted service are not to be underestimated. BMJ has a simple mission, to ‘advance healthcare worldwide’, and partnerships such as our relationship with Your.MD are key to enabling us to learn and grow as a digital business to deliver on that mission”.

Matteo Berlucchi, CEO and Co-founder of Your.MD said: “Trust is the biggest challenge for any AI system but for healthcare in particular. How can you trust the information or advice you receive from an AI system? Are the algorithms designed in an unbiased way? Are the data used to train the AI of the necessary quality? At Your.MD we believe we have designed one of the best AI platforms in the world to help in achieving Universal Healthcare, one of the Sustainable Development Goals set by the UN for 2030. Now we want to show that our software, data and processes are of the standard required to be able to deliver our vision and BMJ is the ideal partner to help us achieve this ambitious goal”.

#### BMJ

BMJ is a healthcare knowledge provider that aims to advance healthcare worldwide by sharing knowledge and expertise to improve experiences, outcomes and value. For a full list of BMJ products and services, please visit​ ​[bmj.com/company](https://www.bmj.com/company/)

#### Your.MD

Your.MD is a free service that uses Artificial Intelligence to give safe health information to help everyone in the world make the best choices for their health. For more information please visit ​[your.md/about](https://www.your.md/about/)

[[SC]]
|Check my symptoms
|
|Click below to try the Your.MD Symptom Checker
|
|[Try Symptom Checker](https://webapp.your.md?utm_source=yourmd&utm_medium=navbar&utm_campaign=medical-data-validation-by-british-medical-journal)

#### References:

(*) [http://www.jmir.org/2016/1/e15](http://www.jmir.org/2016/1/e15/)


BMJ Best Practice will apply their unique experience in evidence-based medical information to validate the medical data used by Your.MD’s AI symptom checker.