DrEd

DrEd is a multinational healthcare organisation headquartered in London, United Kingdom. As well as serving the UK and Swiss market, DrEd is currently Germany's and Austria's only internet-based medical practice, operated by a team including regulated and General Medical Council registered doctors.
DrEd enables a patient to obtain medical treatments and tests for specific conditions without needing to visit a doctor in person, via a secure website and application. The core clinics are Men's health, Women's Health, Sexual Health, Travel Health, Heart, Circulation, Lungs, and Wellbeing. Prescriptions are dispensed by partner pharmacies and dispatched via mail. In Germany and Austria, a patient can take a printed DrEd prescription to a regular pharmacy. Online consultations are based on guidelines which have been "developed according to clinical best practice" (see ""). Where in doubt, DrEd aims to refer patients to a GP or consultant for a face-to-face consultation.
Online Medical Practice
DrEd aims to provide regulatory-compliant online and remote medical services, making medical care more accessible for patients by harnessing technology to remove the need for a face-to-face doctor consultation. DrEd is able to communicate with patients with a web-based assessment and an "Online Patient Record". A Nuffield Council on Bioethics report titled "Medical profiling and online medicine: the ethics of ‘personalised healthcare’ in a consumer age" stated that such technology is at the core of remote prescribing of medication. Organisations that simply dispense medications following the submission or upload of an existing prescription, or organisations that do not employ regulated or registered GPs do not fall into the "online medical practice" category. There are now a number of online clinics in the UK and elsewhere whose doctors are permitted to prescribe certain pharmaceuticals following an online consultation with a patient. This process is known as e-prescribing.
Common medications that require prescriptions, such as malaria tablets, hair loss tablets and the contraceptive pill are available from DrEd, following an online consultation and diagnosis by a DrEd GP. DrEd also offers treatments for asthma, high blood pressure and erectile dysfunction through its chronic, lifestyle and sexual health clinics. Industry analysts and authors commend such a service, stating that advances in technology both on the internet and in consumer devices (e.g. home blood pressure monitor) are helping to make the processes behind and involved in remote prescribed medications become "widely accepted".
In 2011, an NHS Confederation report stated that online medical and healthcare practices and organisation are an important step forward for the future of healthcare. It concluded that "by predominantly (and currently) offering only a face-to-face service regardless of what patients themselves prefer, not only does this focus almost all demand onto the most resource-intensive channel of care, it alienates a growing section of the population for whom digital communication is the default expectation of how to access services." However, whilst DrEd does have a range of clinics and available treatments online, clearly they do not yet seek to provide open-ended care for every patient with any medical problem.
DrEd Doctors and Advisory Board
DrEd collaborates with leading medical specialists and opinion leaders in relevant clinical areas to develop guidelines and protocols for its services. In Germany, Prof. Dr. med. Udo Engelmann, Director of the Department of Urology, University Hospital of Cologne and Prof. Dr. med. Dr. h. c. Thomas Philipp, Emeritus Director of the Department of Kidneys and Hypertension, University of Essen form the DrEd Scientific Advisory Board.
DrEd doctors are registered with and regulated by the General Medical Council (GMC) in the UK and as such comply with the Good Medical Practice Guidelines.
Clinics and Services
DrEd currently offers the following clinics and services through its website:
*Erectile Dysfunction
*Premature Ejaculation
*Hair Loss
*Contraceptive Pill
*Morning After Pill
*Cystitis
*Sexual Health Clinic
*STI Tests and Treatments
*Photo Assessments
*Cholesterol
*Blood Pressure
*Asthma
*Malaria Tablets
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*Quit Smoking
*Acne
Emergency Contraception by courier
In 2012, DrEd launched an emergency contraception service that delivered the emergency contraceptive pill across London within 2 hours, following an online assessment.
The service works by capturing important information via an online questionnaire. A DrEd doctor then reviews this information before the medication is delivered.

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