Out of Five Stars

High quality content *****
Up to date *****
Good presentation  ****
Level of unfettered access ***
Useful patient information *****
Interactive CME  *

For some 17 years GPs throughout New Zealand have been supplied, free of charge, small directory handbooks from a New Zealand company, Cervin Publishing.

Covering medical specialists and more recently primary care providers, the handbooks are known as the NZ Medical Specialists & Hospitals Directory" and the "Primary Health & Community Services Directory.

Healthpages is in essence an online amalgamation of these two publications in a reasonably durable platform with a built-in search engine to allow more rapid online access to the details of a range of health professionals or services from throughout the health sector.

The online service has been going for eight years now and the website has been recently upgraded.

Nevertheless, to attempt to do the job of providing a comprehensive, accurate and always up-to-date directory of these resources is a very courageous task, which Cervin took on back in 2001, and it was perhaps only their experience in the database publishing business which enabled them to give it a go.

Fairly recently it was pointed out to me by a colleague that we did, in fact, have a reasonably reliable and up-to-date list of those all important Healthlink mailbox codes within our printed Primary Health & Community Services Directory and which had tended to be made available a little more regularly than the Healthlink directory.

Though the latter is "somewhat" available online through their VPN Healthlink Concerto database and portal.

While the Healthlink database (the secure web-based link we get our NHI numbers from) is slow and clumsy at least the Healthpages database is much quicker.

As we know we are not only required to send our transferring patient records off to medical practices in our local area but just as often out to the provinces - and having a readily available web-based directory of both practice names, practitioner names and contact details can be extremely helpful.

At other times we may also be looking for the names and contact for an out-of-town practitioner to discuss a patient with and, while the online Telecom White Pages have always given us this facility, we now have an equally accessible "one-stop shop" with more detail than we would expect from the White Pages (eg, fax number, email access for non-subscribers and extended practitioner details for those willing to subscribe to the service).

At this point it would be important to point out there are very few if any general practices who appear to have subscribed to this service. What we do get, however, for our basic "free-listing" is quite reasonable and more than we would expect from the extraordinarily expensive and long overdue for serious competition White Pages.

There is also the useful facility for an email to be forwarded on (the email address is not divulged which may well be a good thing based on the ever-increasing number of emails we seem to be getting these days), the two category listings (both General Practitioner and General Practice), our phone and fax numbers and a cute Google Map location guide to get to our practice.

Of some interest, Cervin Publishing currently has two other "affiliated" directory services online - "Property Maintenance" and "Education".

I have not checked these out with the exception of a brief look at the property maintenance section for a local garden designer who was not currently listed despite my exhaustive attack on the search engine.

So, while the Healthpages has made a very worthwhile attempt to get the full range of health practitioners listed in the database this does not seem to be quite the same for the property maintenance guide.

The relevance of this is reasonably important as some time ago we reviewed the HealthPoint website (www.healthpoint.co.nz) which had managed to get all the DHBs on board with its slightly more clumsy directory, but did not from the outset list all private practitioners (eg, medical specialists and GPs) and I was critical of this omission.

Indeed, on checking Healthpoint today - some two years after our review - their policy remains unchanged and as an example there appears to be "no" private endocrinologists in the Auckland region listed on their site.
As a user I made my opinion clear that, if I was not able to inspect an online list of all providers of a specialty in my local area, then I would not use the service at all.

Furthermore, in some respects a directory which only lists "paid subscribers" can be perceived as a directory of those "in need of clients".

To a degree Healthpages has also fallen into the same trap a little. When doing a search (and I must say after having been spoiled by Google the search engine is a little archaic and "nineties-like" in its sophistication) one can get a strange listing of requested services and professionals - even when looking for "general practitioner".

The first batch of names coming up is the short list of subscribed or paid advertisers with a modest amount of clinical background and information and none of which were general practices!

In some cases these embellished service listings might have colour pictures of smiling clinicians with additional embedded advertorials - often their advertorial may include general surgical, general dermatological or general obstetric services, for example - which gives the impression of a clumsy out-of-date directory and a way-before-2001 search engine.

However, after a bit of persistence I discovered it is possible to be a little more specific to nail down the searched-for subject. Sometimes it is better to use a search location such as Albany rather than North Shore and, yet, we can often only find that out by trial and error.

Having battled with the sluggish search engine however, I did find the opportunity to be able to get a short list of providers, for example, of neurologists or endocrinologists in the Auckland region - or even physiotherapists and chiropractors in the local area.

Something that I, as a GP, have been desperately waiting for for many years after the initial PMS based MedTech list some five to 10 years ago - and which as we know was never updated - and the inability of Healthpoint to provide this for us.

So, what would be the benefits of having this site on our Taskbar ?
• Having the contact details and email accessibility for out-of-area general practices.
• Having the ability to list and print a complete and more extensive list of specialists for our patients.
• Having the Healthlink mailbox details readily available for all general practices.
• Having the ability to update (albeit manually) our PMS address book.

And, for our patients, it is a useful and accessible directory of GPs, private specialists and a wide range of community-based services both private and public with helpful maps and email accessibility to their providers.

With their 18 years of experience and, perhaps, a better and more modern search engine, I feel the Healthpages database and directory could even try and take on the less experienced and somewhat disorganised Healthpoint in the perpetual competition for the DHB health dollar.