How a doctor’s second opinion is just a click away for Hongkongers - and whether that’s a good thing

Online services offering access to medical experts in Europe and the US can prevent unnecessary surgery and provide alternative treatments, their founders say, as telemedicine gains traction

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Published: 5:30am, 16 Jan 2017Updated: 10:22am, 17 Jan 2017

What if you twisted your knee, tearing your anterior cruciate ligament, and a doctor suggests surgery costing around HK$150,000. Would you have the operation?

Perhaps you might want a second opinion. These days that’s as easy as turning on your computer. If you uploaded MRI scans to Taipan Health’s taipanhealth.com service website, you would get a another opinion within 24 hours from a doctor with a leading medical institution in Europe or the US for HK$1,289.

Maarten Kwik, founder of Taipan Health. Photo: Marcel Heijnen

Maarten Kwik, who founded Taipan Health five months ago, says in Europe second opinions have prevented unnecessary treatments in about 5 per cent of cases. “There is clear evidence that second opinions improve both the financial and medical outcome for consumers,” says Kwik, a Dutchman who has lived in Hong Kong for six years.

Taipan Health focuses mainly on radiology advice and leverages a network of more than 150 Western specialists and sub-specialists selected by the company’s medical director, Dr Hans Smeets. He is a consultant radiologist and telemedicine entrepreneur who founded Teleconsult Europe, a Netherlands-based company that offers radiology services to hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres, laboratories, medical services companies and the Dutch government.

Online medical advice has been a trend in the US for a few years. Some of these services are offered by established medical centres, such as Johns Hopkins http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/second_opinion and Cleveland Clinic, while others are like Taipan Health – independent businesses that work with specialists on a consulting basis, such as SecondOpinions.com or BestDoctors.com.

In mainland China, such services are also taking off. The Citizen Health Platform of Shenzhen, an app run by the local government, offers second opinions from renowned American medical institutions.