The Why
Very few medical professionals who want to serve overseas actually “go.”
There are many understandable reasons why the majority do not end up going. Educational debt. Travel costs. Time away from work. Family needs. There’s also the challenge of finding the right fit between field needs and our areas of expertise or interest.
Virtual involvement will never replace the value and impact of in-person work, but it offers a way for more people to get involved in meaningful high-impact, low-cost ways. Also, we believe connecting someone with a heart for overseas work to the various medical and spiritual needs around the world just might lead to a specialist hearing the calling to physically go.
In early 2023, we surveyed front-line medical field workers to understand their needs
The How
When users create a Consult Bridge profile, they can join as a medical consultant or a clinician serving outside the United States with consultation needs.
We require that all consultants in our network have active medical licenses (unless retired) and are board certified in the specialty they are consulting for.
Field workers are invited to use our Consult Bridge platform if they align with our statement of faith and if they are serving patients outside of the United States.
All users must agree to terms and conditions stating that all medical liability for the care rendered to patients rests exclusively on the clinician submitting the consult request and not on Consult Bridge nor the consultants serving through Consult Bridge. Clinicians are not to include the name of consultants in their medical charting.
Field workers can submit as many consult requests as they need. Once they submit the request, it is automatically sent to all consultants who are registered to the specialty being requested. The first consultant to accept the request will be matched to the consult requester, and the two user profiles will be shared so that communication can occur. Our platform will initially require users to connect through existing lines of communication such as email, iMessage, Zoom, and WhatsApp.
We understand the importance of building a HIPAA-compliant platform and are actively working toward it. Key features in our next phase of development include asynchronous messaging and the ability to upload de-identified patient documents and photos. Our long-term vision is to add features including the ability to schedule virtual consultation appointments and to provide vetted CME material for clinicians serving in low-resource areas.