Doctor D

Doctor D empowers gay men to stay on top of their sexual health.

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The Problem

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s), and other infectious diseases among gay men are major concerns for gay men, their physicians, and public health officials. In 2014, gay men accounted for a whopping 70% of approximately 44,000 new HIV infections, and over 80% of nearly 20,000 new syphilis infections, in the U.S. Since 2012, outbreaks of an infection called meningococcal meningitis, which in many cases is fatal, have occurred among gay men. The CDC and other public health agencies have made recommendations specific to gay men regarding HIV and STD testing, sexual health-related vaccinations, and HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (“PrEP”). However, gay men and even their physicians often lack awareness of these recommendations. As a result, many gay men do not even know they have HIV and may infect others without knowing it. Further, clinicians often do not know and do not ask the sexual orientation of their patients; even if they do, they often fall short of CDC recommendations in taking care of the sexual health of their gay patients. Finally, access to reliable sources of sexual health information is very limited; CDC’s STD Treatment Guidelines are aimed at a physician audience and are too technical to be useful for most gay men. There are currently no apps or websites that offer the services that Doctor D offers.

Our Solution: Doctor D

Doctor D is a free mobile app that empowers gay men to stay on top of their sexual health. The app allows users to:

  1. Get customized recommendations, based on answers to questions about their sexual behaviors and medical history, related to HIV and STD testing, sexual health-related vaccinations, and HIV prophylaxis (including PrEP);
  2. Locate clinics and testing sites where they can obtain recommended sexual health services; and
  3. Set reminders so that they can remember when their next tests or vaccinations are due.

We plan to partner with healthcare providers (e.g., clinics, hospitals), community organizations, and public health agencies. We will leverage these partnerships to create even more sophisticated services, including:

  • A patient engagement platform that, among other capabilities, will allow gay men to schedule appointments and coordinate care directly with healthcare providers, including the ability to message doctors directly with questions or concerns
  • A sexual health history feature that helps gay men keep track of their HIV/STD testing results, vaccines, and HIV prophylaxis history, for their own records and potentially to share, if desired, with potential sex partner(s)
  • The ability to push critical updates and knowledge, including specific preventative measures, from the CDC and other public health agencies to gay men in real-time, for example, during an outbreak of a particular STD or other infectious disease in a municipality
  • A data repository that provides anonymized sexual health trend data for research and other medical insight (like Apple’s HealthKit)
  • A service to order home HIV testing kits and other STD tests as well as a condom subscription service through the app

Accomplishments

Winner of AngelHack SF Code4Impact 2016.

What's Next

To grow our user base quickly initially, our MVP product will be free to use and will not require a subscription. Over the next few months, we will continue to add survey modules for other STD tests, sexual health-related vaccines, and HIV pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP and PEP). Using user testing data from our MVP, we will determine high priority functionality to include within the app as well as other potential revenue streams. In the future, potential revenue streams may include:

  • Advertisements
  • Sale of home HIV testing kits and other STD tests and a condom subscription service
  • Grants from local, state, and federal public health agencies
  • Individual user subscription for premium services (e.g., sexual health history)
  • Healthcare provider subscription for patient engagement platform
  • Lead generation for health care providers

Doctor D targets the same demographic that uses popular gay dating and hookup apps such as Grindr, Jack’d, Hornet, Scruff, etc. According to UCLA’s Williams Institute, there were over 4 million men in the U.S. who identified as gay/bisexual in 2011. The popular gay hookup app Grindr has 5-6 million monthly users. We envision Doctor Dick serving as a one-stop shop for gay men’s sexual health needs. Just as Grindr is synonymous with gay dating and hookup, we believe Doctor D has a strong potential to be a brand that is synonymous with gay health. Our team will develop an extensive network of partners, including public health agencies, clinics, hospitals, community organizations, and perhaps pharmaceutical companies, to bring critical sexual health services to gay men via Doctor D. With investor support, we believe we can turn Doctor D into a ubiquitous digital sexual health companion for gay men.

If the Doctor D model proves successful, we plan to roll out a suite of apps to address other sexual health and general health issues and populations. We are excited by the prospect of using technology and working with other partners to solve public health challenges.

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