Finding the right specialist can be a decisive step in a patient’s healthcare journey. Yet navigating a complex healthcare system and accessing the expertise needed is not always straightforward. Top Doctors aims to bridge this gap by making specialist care easier to identify and access, using technology to connect patients with the expertise best suited to their needs.
As part of our summer break, the impact.info team invites you to (re)discover one of our episodes.
You can also find our article on the topic right here .
Enjoy listening!
Killian Flagey
impact.info director
Published on 25 August 2026
Transcript Audio in English· AI-generated transcript
0:00 Hello and welcome to the podcast showcasing entrepreneurs who are changing society for 0:10 the better. Have you ever struggled to get a correct diagnosis from a doctor? Or tried 0:16 to pinpoint the best doctor for your particular pathology? Studies show that on average, a 0:21 patient sees 2.7 medical professionals before getting the right diagnosis and treatment. 0:27 Top Doctors aims to put an end to all that by matching patients with the right doctor 0:32 via a free to use website. It was founded by husband and wife team Alberto Porciani 0:38 and Lorena Vivo. 0:40 My name is Alberto Porciani. I'm Italian. I'm living in Barcelona. My background is 0:47 pharmaceutical companies. I worked for Johnson & Johnson during 11 years. And finally, to 0:53 the decision to leave the corporate account world and starting being entrepreneur with 1:00 my wife and building the company that today is Top Doctors Group. 1:06 What does Top Doctors do exactly? What's the service it provides? 1:10 Top Doctors has two different, let's say, business model. One is what we define B2C, 1:17 you know, a platform of top specialists that is helping patients to find the right specialist 1:24 and easily connect through technology. So it's a website marketplace of specialists 1:32 and the platform is matching the expertise of the top specialists with the potential 1:39 disease that the patient is suffering. And today we count on more than 250 million users 1:46 per year and we are managing through the platform more than 7 million appointments 1:53 through let's say online booking system or telemedicine session. You can see here the 2:01 social impact of this activity because again, it's facilitating the selection of specialists 2:08 for those people that don't have a clear connection with healthcare sector. So they need a kind 2:15 of recommendation to find the right doctor. And secondly, it's also helping the access 2:22 to top specialists for those people that are living in rural areas where you don't have, 2:29 generally speaking, a hospital, top hospital, top clinic close to you. And through the telemedicine 2:35 platform you can get this access and this communication easily. 2:40 The second business model is the enterprise solutions that we developed recently. Since 2:48 2020, we started an internal development process of IT solutions software for hospitals and 2:56 big clinics in order to help them in their digitalization process and internal optimization 3:05 of the key processes and management. 3:08 So how accessible is this service for ordinary people? Is it only private doctors? Is it 3:15 expensive? Is it something anyone can access? How does it work? 3:20 Okay, the service for the people is for free. Getting the appointment or being able to get 3:29 all the information related to the specialist and making a very conscious selection of the 3:37 right doctor for you as a patient, it's free. Now, the doctor that used to be listed in 3:45 our platform used to be doctors that are operating in the private sector. Now, the key point 3:54 here is selecting the right doctor that is expert in your pathology or your disease is 4:03 increasing the eventual outcome of the medical curation. And that is the base of top doctors' 4:13 philosophy and that's the reason why we focus on the private sector where this choice is 4:20 available, this is possible. In the NHS or public sector, it's not possible generally. 4:26 How did you identify this gap in society, this need for this service? How did it occur 4:33 to you? Where did you get the idea? 4:35 This is a nice story because it's basically based on personal experience. Lorena, that 4:41 is my wife, but also is a co-founder of Top Doctors. She's also the doctor, a very important 4:48 doctor in Barcelona. And because she is the doctor of a doctor, she used to receive a 4:56 lot of calls from friends and family asking for the right doctors. I have this problem 5:03 with my knee. Could you recommend a very good orthopedic expert in me? So she was receiving 5:09 during the entire life, all these calls to provide this recommendation to friends. So 5:15 it was clear that selecting the right doctor was a clear need of the society. On the other 5:23 side, we saw the need for the doctors to manage their online reputation. So the idea of helping 5:32 from one side good doctors to manage their online reputation and to be visible in Google 5:40 through our platform, and at the same time, helping the patient to find the right doctor 5:45 because it's the qualified doctors with experts in the pathology. And our search algorithm 5:52 making this match possible, it was a clear insight. And I have to say that today the 6:00 success of the platform, the 250 million users per year, is confirming that it was clearly 6:06 a need in the market. 6:08 You talk about 250 million. This is global, is it? 6:12 They were operating in eight countries. So yes, it's the sum of all the eight platforms 6:17 that you have in Europe and Latin America. 6:20 How is this changing the world for the better? 6:23 Oh, yes. I mean, I think that I explained it a bit, the social impact of that. I can 6:28 share with you one important data that is, generally speaking, a patient used to visit 6:35 2.7 different specialists before getting the right one and getting the right diagnosis. 6:45 OK, now, if we ask to the top doctors, users, 87 percent of them select the right specialist 6:54 and they got the right diagnosis the first time. 6:59 Secondly, the opportunity to get a better recovery, a better curation of your disease 7:06 immediately. And third, very important also for the sector, the savings that this element 7:13 represents, because you can imagine the cost of these 2.7 visits that are unqualified visits 7:22 represents for the entire sector and all the stakeholders in the sector. So that is very, 7:27 very important. Secondly, rural areas. Today, it's very important getting access or having 7:38 the right access to the right doctors for those people that don't have a clinic or a 7:43 hospital close to them. And thanks to the technology, so telemedicine, this is possible. 7:50 Anticipate or getting the first visit through the telemedicine. And then, of course, 7:55 if you need a face to face visit with the doctor, you can travel to the office of the clinic of the 8:01 doctor. But once you really realize that that is the right doctors and the doctors can really 8:07 take care of your disease. So this is a clear social impact immediately of the usage of the 8:13 doctors. Third, I would say last but not least, all the technology that we are today providing 8:22 clinics and hospital with is, of course, represent a lot of savings, a lot of optimization 8:29 of the experience of the patients in that clinic. And on top of that, we are introducing 8:37 artificial intelligence in all our solutions. One solution that we call top doctors listener 8:44 is allowing, for example, the doctors and the patient to have a normal conversation. 8:50 Imagine when you have a visit face to face with the doctors, the doctors normally is typing all 8:55 the time, is not even looking at you many times because has to write down the anamnesis and the 9:02 diagnosis that is collecting from your conversation. Top doctors listener can do it for the doctor. 9:12 Impact.info doing things differently. When you were a teenager, when you were say 16, 9:20 what were your dreams? Was it anything like this? Do you feel that you've moved towards those dreams 9:24 or is this something completely different? One of my dreams was to be able to build up something 9:32 by myself. So my entrepreneur desire. OK. And that is what happened. I have to say that 9:41 both for them and myself, the most important element and what is really helping us to wake up 9:46 with a smile each each morning is helping patients each day, millions of patients 9:54 that are suffering. And we see how top doctors is helping their direction successfully. 10:01 And that is the most important. That was Impact.info doing things differently. Embed this interview on your site
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