Zocdoc has introduced the Patient-Powered Search to provide a more intuitive search experience, built specifically to bridge the gap between healthcare industry and human speak. The feature allows just about anyone to use his or her own language — from “gyno” to “hurt wrist” to “post-election stress disorder” — to find the right provider for their needs.
In contrast, the traditional physician search systems put the onus on patients to know the appropriate specialty for a procedure or the precise medical terminology to describe their condition.
The Patient-Powered Search combines smart technology that understands human language with insights from a decade of past data on appointment bookings to build a product that puts more control in patients’ hands. The algorithm in the background uses a natural language processing and then maps those colloquial terms to the appropriate specialty, visit reason or procedure type.
In addition, the system also uses machine learning to aggregate intent, and prioritize and re-rank search results based on patient behaviors so the most popular search selections will appear at the top. This allows Zocdoc to continually learn what patients are looking for, and adjust results based on trends or new needs. In other words, patient searches are truly powering the feature — the more searches and selections it collects, the better results will be.
The Patient-Powered Search has been in beta on desktop for some time; now it is rolling out to mobile web and mobile apps.