In September 2020, GPinfo.nl, an English version of Dutch Thuisarts.nl was launched. Thuisarts provides information about health, disease and treatment that is consulted 5 mln times monthly by the general public and GP's. GPinfo.nl was started as a pilot by the Dutch College of GP’s (NHG) in collaboration with Healthcare for internationals (H4i.nl).
This pilot offered about 35 medical and non-medical topics in English.
Majority finds information reliable and relevant
The results of this pilot show that GPinfo.nl supports both internationals and GPs.
Almost 80% of internationals found the information reliable and relevant and more than 70% of GPs surveyed indicated that with GPinfo.nl the interaction with internationals improves and the consultation is more efficient.
What have we learned
Almost all respondents (96%) want to continue using GPinfo.nl in the future. The website has been visited more than 20,000 times in two and a half months.
In addition to these encouraging results, many suggestions were also made to increase the impact of GPinfo, such as: increasing the number of medical topics, more information about how Dutch healthcare works and adding a search function.
We also found that in translating texts from Dutch more attention should be given to the fact that international users generally come from different health systems and cultures.
Next steps
GPinfo.nl, for now, remains online in its current form. We are planning for the extension of subjects and implementation of suggested improvements. We will keep you informed via our posts.
To all internationals that have participated in the GPinfo pilot and survey: Thank you for your contribution!