February 12th, 2005 Expansion of the international directory for Heart Centers on HeartCenter.info continued throughout 2004. Specialized cardiac centers in Indonesia, India, United
Arab Emirates, Syria, Austria, Germany and the United States joined the directory in recent monthes. Letter of the founder of HeartCenter.info:
Dear Patients, Doctors and Visitors,
Throughout the year 2004 the international directory for Heart Centers on HeartCenter.info continued its organic growth towards a more comprehensive global hospital directory. For 2005, we welcome all new entries and encourage every interested heart center to register their institution with our directory.
As outlined before, we do neither charge any of our visitors, nor the registered heart centers for our services. On top of that, our directory remains free of any advertisement. In this spirit we are dedicated to our mission of delivering high-quality information about heart centers worldwide.
Sincerely yours,
Ömer N. Gök
April 7th, 2004 The directory for cancer centers received important new entries from several international referral centers, which are informing international patients and their referring
physicians by providing an in-depth view of their history, their expertise and their professional services. These institutions support the mission of Cancer-Center.info to provide patients worldwide with accurate and detailed
information about available cancer treatment options: the
January 14th, 2004 During the last three months cancer centers in Los Angeles, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Boston, New York, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Rennes, Dijon, Antwerp, Hannover, Berlin,
Vienna, Kanpur, and Hyderabad joined the international directory for cancer centers on Cancer-Center.info. Further expansion of the database of excellent cancer centers in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa is under its
way. Letter of the founder of HeartCenter.info:c
Dear Patients, Doctors and Visitors,
Please let me send our best wishes to you and your family for the year 2004. Further I would like to thank everyone, who worked for or collaborated with one of our two international directories. These two ambitious websites would be impossible to sustain without the work of each of you !
Especially I would like to express our profound gratitude to Mr. Jin Kyun Park, M.D. Mr. Park embarked to Atlanta in the United States for several high-level research projects in the exciting new field of inflammation as mediator of atherosclerotic plaque instability. He will continue his work as our primary medical adviser in Atlanta, of course.
Also, I would like thank Mr. Jin Joo Park, M.D. for his tremendous effort during the last year in his role as head of the Asian Division of HeartCenter.info. He is currently back in Seoul, the capital of his native home country South Korea, to continue his work as a medical doctor and as head of our Asian Division.
With the launch of our new directory for cancer centers, it became clear that we would have to expand our team. It is my pleasure to introduce today our new head of the Middle Eastern Division of Cancer-Center.info: Mr. Payam Samareh Pahlavan, M.D.
Mr. Pahlavan, who is a native of Iran, worked for several years in hospitals and research institutes in Iran, Canada and Germany after having studied in Teheran. He brings to us a large pool of professional experience on the international level and his contributions will certainly be an important asset to the expansion of our database in the Middle East.
Sincerely yours,
Ömer N. Gök
October 8th, 2003 The new directory for Cancer Centers on Cancer-Center.info was joined by several world-renowned Cancer Centers in Europe and the United States. Cancer Centers in New York
City, Chicago, San Francisco, Medellin, Cambridge and Heidelberg are registered with the international database of Cancer Centers on Cancer-Center.info. Further expansion of both directories for specialized treatment centers
around the world is ongoing. Letter of the founder of HeartCenter.info:
Dear Patients, Doctors and Visitors,
during its first months of existence, the new international directory for Cancer Centers on Cancer-Center.info drew attention from patients around the world as it is signified by the immense number of e-mail requests we received in that period.
Many of those requests raise an important issue, which I would like to clarify: although we do cooperate with more than one hundred specialized centers of excellence in the fields of Cardiology, Cardiothoracic Surgery, Oncology and Hematology, we are not affiliated with any hospital or university. This means in practice, that we can not provide any specific advice about medical issues or offer employment at any hospital, which is registered in one of our directories.
Our hospital directories were created to give international patients and their referring physicians a reliable and independent source of information about specialized treatment centers around the world: this is achieved by our comittment to provide only information about treatment centers, which has been validated by representatives of the respective hospitals. Since not all hospitals in the world are interested to register their information, we do not claim to provide a complete or comprehensive worldwide directory.
Nevertheless, we believe in the importance of our work and feel encouraged by the strong feedback of both hospitals and patients from more than thirty countries during the last twelve monthes. Our mission remains to serve patients around the world without charging any fees or displaying any advertisement on our service.
Sincerely yours,
Ömer N. Gök
May 5th, 2003 More than one year after the first international directory for heart centers was launched on HeartCenter.info, the global directory for cancer centers goes online today on
Cancer-Center.info. Cancer of all sort remains one of the biggest threats to human health and constantly ranks second only to heart disease as the leading cause of death in developed countries. The international
directory for cancer centers on Cancer-Center.info intends to give cancer patients around the world the freedom to compare specialized cancer centers and hospitals to ultimately find a strong partner in their fight against cancer.
Letter of the founder of HeartCenter.info:
Dear Patients, Doctors and Visitors,
Persons who just learned to have cancer often feel totally overwhelmed by this devastating experience. As one patient with newly diagnosed small cell lung
cancer described his feelings to me: "It feels, as if someone pulls the rug out from under your feet !"
Unfortunately not all countries do have appropriate hospitals and health care facilities available for cancer
patients. Especially complicated cases or selden forms of cancer can often be treated more adequately by experienced cancer specialists in the setting of a cancer center that provides all instruments and facilities, which are
necessary for a modern staging and treatment process of this life-threatening group of diseases.
Important tools to assess the degree of cancer spread within the body may include, depending on the form of cancer, such
sophisticated diagnostic instruments as MR-Imaging or a Fluorescence-activated Cell Sorter, called FACS, for example.
On the therapeutic side, the picture is no different. Very powerful therapeutic instruments to
treat for example certain forms of leukemia include autologous or allogeneic stem cell transplantation: both are very expensive and require a highly sophisticated environment, as well as experienced specialists to be
performed.
For these reasons, there is a considerable number of cancer patients worldwide, who are searching on the Internet for information about treatment options and specialized hospitals, who are able to provide these
options.
Our extensive correspondence with international patients during the last year led us to conclude that there is indeed a high demand for an independent provider of information in the international landscape of
cancer care.
Due to this demand, we feel the moral obligation to extend our successful information program to cancer patients around the world, so that they may enjoy the same freedom of choice as heart disease patients already
do by accessing the HeartCenter.info directory.
Therefore it is my pleasure to announce today the launch of the international directory for cancer centers and institutes on Cancer-Center.info.
This newly created
directory shall be governed by the same principles, that have proven so important for the HeartCenter.info directory: the patient`s needs are of utmost importance to our team. Our commitment is underlined by our strict policy
of providing only objective information, which have been directly sent and validated by the involved hospitals and cancer centers. Further we do insist on our well established principle of prohibiting any form of
advertisement on any of our directories. Please allow me to point out that although we do not tolerate any advertisement, we provide our services absolutely free of charge to patients and doctors worldwide.
Speaking
for our team, I wish all cancer patients, who visit the directory on Cancer-Center.info now and in the future, that they can find what they are
looking for: professional help against cancer for themselves and their loved ones.
Sincerely yours,
Ömer N. Gök
February 5th, 2003 Together with international patients and heart centers around the globe, HeartCenter.info celebrates its success: today marks the first anniversary of the first
international directory for heart centers on the internet. Collaborations with more than 100 world-class heart centers on six continents were initiated since the directory was launched one year ago. HeartCenter.info`s
database, featuring outstanding heart centers from Sydney to San Francisco, gives international patients, business executives and travellers an unprecedented access to global information about cardiac care providers.
Letter of the founder of HeartCenter.info:
Dear Patients, Doctors and Visitors,
please let me express our deepest gratitude to all those who made the exceptional success of HeartCenter.info possible. Above all, I would like to thank the doctors and the nurses of each of the 107 hospitals, heart centers and heart institutes, who decided to participate in our vision and who made the efforts to realize this vision. The caring staff of these excellent hospitals is truly at the heart of what this directory is all about : to serve and help the suffering patients around the world.
We are also indebted to thousands of inspiring comments and advices from patients, cardiac surgeons, cardiologists, nurses and business executives. Your invaluable comments will help us to advance this directory and to adapt it over time to the true needs of patients and hospitals.
Personally I would like to thank the HeartCenter.info Team, without which this directory would have been impossible to create and advance throughout the last twelve months:
Mr. Jin Joo Park, M.D. from South Korea, who heads the Asian Division of HeartCenter.info and who did an outstanding job in assisting numerous hospitals in the region and helping countless patients in every way possible to find the right treatment facility.
Mr. Melki Adiyaman, M.D. was responsible for a substantial part of HeartCenter.info`s engagement in the Middle East. Dr. Adiyaman himself has a strong cultural background related to the region, by being a native Aramaic and sustaining multiple relationships to countries in the Middle East. It is my pleasure to announce today, that Dr. Adiyaman will head the new Middle Eastern Division of HeartCenter.info.
Mr. Jin Kyun Park, M.D. from South Korea. Mr. Park, who just returned to Heidelberg from the United States, is the primary medical adviser to HeartCenter.info. Endowed with professional experience with academic hospitals in a variety of countries, such as South Korea, Austria and the United States, he is constantly working on innovations to make this international directory more useful for patients and referring physicians.
Looking forward into the future, I believe that our vision of global health care was confirmed during the last twelve months. This vision is already materializing, as many patients in different countries are demanding to find not only a hospital, but to find for themselve the best available hospital in the world.
The answer to that challenge has to be a global enterprise like HeartCenter.info, which advocates and serves the wishes of international patients to find information about specialized hospitals.
It is our mission and it is our honor to serve patients worldwide in their endeavour to find excellence in cardiac care. We thank again all those who share our mission and contributed to the directory. And I know I speak for all the patients, and all the visitors of HeartCenter.info, in expressing our profoundest gratitude.
Sincerely,
Ömer N. Gök
November 5th, 2002 HeartCenter.info supports patients in rural and medically underserved areas by offering them a costfree
research tool to find adequate medical care. This international directory also supports hospitals in developing countries by providing them with an independent presentation platform on which each hospital can present itself
to an international audience of heart disease patients and their referring physicians. Statement of the founder of HeartCenter.info:
Dear Patients, Doctors and Visitors, to gain access to adequate medical care can be a serious problem in certain areas of the world,
afflicting millions of patients each day. Although this directory will not be able to solve that problem in itself, we hope to contribute to its alleviation, by giving every patient free access to information about
specialized heart hospitals around the world. Lack of information about available treatment facilities even in the patient`s closer area can be a major obstacle for a patient to receive the appropiate treatment for his
disease. Especially people, who are living in thinly populated rural areas and who are not regularly seen by a doctor can face difficulties in finding a hospital, which offers a specialized approach to heart diseases. But
even in densely populated areas or major cities, it is often not known by many heart disease patients that hospitals might exist in their city, which offer higly specialized services for patients with heart disease. Closing
that fundamental gap in the knowledge of heart disease patients about available treatment facilities, is in essence the reason, why this directory was set up. Although our primary focus is on the individual patient to help him
find information about hospitals, we do foster a strong spirit of cooperation with hospitals. Our main principle for our relationships with hospitals around the world, is the principle of equality. In our opinion, each
hospital deserves the same right to present itself on the internet in exactly the same way as any other hospital. Unfortunately some hospitals in developing countries do not have the resources to present themselve on the internet
to a broad international audience, for example by sustaining their own website in the English language. Further we do believe, that there is often a discrepancy between the quality of the medical services offered by a given
hospital and the quality of the internet presentation of the same hospital`s website. In fact, many hospitals, which are offering outstanding medical care to their cardiac patients are underrepresented by their small or even
non-existing hospital websites. Bridging that information gap is again our answer to these problems: we would like to offer each single hospital in the world the chance to present itself and its offered medical services on our
directory to an international audience of patients, referring physicians and other hospitals in so far more than thirty countries on five continents.
Sincerely yours, Ömer N. Gök
September 3rd, 2002 HeartCenter.info is leading the way as a global information source for international patients and their
referring physicians. In partnership with specialized hospitals, the international directory for Heart Centers endows patients and doctors around the globe with extensive information about Heart Centers on five continents.
Statement of the founder of HeartCenter.info:
Dear Patients, Doctors and Visitors, our vision for optimal health care in the 21st century centers on the patient’s needs: we
believe, that it should be each patient’s right to demand and receive nothing less than the highest quality of health care, no matter where he or she might live. Quality in health care has to mean more than achieving the optimal
outcome and result for each individual patient. It has to include an honest and compassionate approach by health care professionals to the specific needs of the patient’s unique character and situation. We envision a
world, in which patients are independent of the particular health care providers in their closer area. Patients should demand to compare services of health care providers not only throughout their country, but to compare them
throughout the world. In the 21st century, these patient’s demands are becoming more and more apparent to health care providers in many countries. A new landscape of international health care is shaped in the scope of these
demands: Hospitals begin to compete with each other on an international level for winning the individual patient’s trust. This competition between health care centers will put pressure on all health care providers to constantly
improve their services for the benefit of all patients. Improving services includes improvements in all aspects of quality in health care : better education of doctors and nurses, optimizing treatment facilities, implementation
of the latest technologies and procedures and last but not least transparency toward the patient regarding the capabilities of each center. We firmly believe in the positive impact of these developments. Since the patient’s needs
should be the first to be considered, we are embracing the notion of more competition between health care providers. Our mission is, not only to watch these developments, but to participate in and catalyze them wherever
possible: putting the needs of patients around the world on top of our agenda. We hope to contribute to these processes by providing tools to compare health care services on the international level. In partnership with
internationally recognized hospitals and heart centers, who accept the challenges of the future, we would like to give you, the patient, the freedom of choice.
Sincerely yours, Ömer N. Gök
July 5th, 2002 Six months after the launch of the international directory for Heart Centers, hospitals all around the world are using the
integrated platform provided by HeartCenter.info. A new chief for the Asian division was named today.
Statement of Mr Jin Joo Park, Chief of the Asian division:
Mr Jin Joo Park from South Korea will be responsible for the presentation of
all hospitals operating in Asia.
Dear Patients, Doctors and Visitors, Our highly sophisticated goal to provide an optimal information source for patients about the most suitable
treatment facilities without geographical limitation, is on the best way to be achieved. Asia is the continent with the highest population density. However, specialized clinics for cardiac care are unequally distributed
throughout this continent. Our mission is to serve the Asian people who are suffering from heart disease, by informing them about specialized centers in their area. Currently HeartCenter.info`s Asian division presents only
a few selected centers in the metropolitan areas. For example, Chinese and English speaking people in East Asia can inform themselves about different heart centers in Hong Kong. Enhancing our database of Asian hospitals
remains one of our primary goals. In the name of heart patients in Asia, it is my honor to accept this extraordinary challenge and to serve their ongoing need for excellence in cardiac care.
Sincerely yours, Jin Joo Park
June 6th, 2002 World-renowned Heart Centers and Hospitals located in the United States join the international directory for Heart Centers.
A highly successful advertisement campaign was launched on a global scale to promote the directory on HeartCenter.info to specific target groups such as international patients and referring physicians.
Statement of the founder of HeartCenter.info:
Dear Patients, Doctors and Visitors, The United States always played a significant role as a pioneer in meeting the needs and hopes of international
patients, who literally travel thousands of miles to find excellence in medical care. The international directory for heart centers is proud to present several of the most famous hospitals in the United States to the
international audience and give detailed background information about their offered services. Recently registered hospitals are located in Palo Alto, Phoenix, Saint Louis, Nashville, Baltimore, New York City, Bogota, Edinburgh,
Leicester, Sheffield, London, Vienna, Istanbul,
From the 20th of May until the 5th of June 2002 a global advertisement campaign was launched on today`s biggest search engines in the internet. During that time the HeartCenter.info advertisement appeared more than 60,000 times on Google, America Online, Earthlink and Sympatico-Lycos. To make sure, that the advertisement is specifically targeted, the ads were selectively shown under key search terms such as “heart disease” or “bypass surgery”. We plan to start further promotion campaigns in the future to boost the public awareness of the opportunities, which this directory has to offer for patients and physicians who are seeking for information about heart centers worldwide.
Sincerely yours Ömer N. Gök
May 3rd, 2002 Hospitals on five continents are registered on the international directory for Heart Centers. As the global network of Heart
Centers unfolds on HeartCenter.info, patients and referring physicians become the opportunity to choose the most appropriate facility for their personal situation among some of the finest Heart Centers in the world.
Statement of the founder of HeartCenter.info:
Dear Patients, Doctors and Visitors, During the last four weeks we received ongoing feedback from specialized hospitals around the globe. We recently
included centers in New York City, Chicago, Montreal, Las Vegas, Baltimore, Johannesburg, London, Nuremberg, Bratislava, Istanbul, Tunis, Bombay, Delhi and Hong Kong to name a few. Transparency of services and
standards in medical care should be a top priority for all health care providers in the times of so called “evidence based medicine”. Therefore this directory actively encourages all participating hospitals to use our service to
publish detailed information about their offered clinical services and their hospital in general. These in depth information are crucial for many referring physicians as well as international patients. In this regard, it is
my pleasure to mention three examples of those centers, which show their support for transparency in medical care by publishing detailed background information on the international directory for heart centers: the
Sincerely yours, Ömer N. Gök
April 5th, 2002 The first Hospitals in Africa, the Middle East, as well as in Northern Asia and South America join the international directory of
Heart Centers. Additionally several new Hospitals in South Asia and North America published information on HeartCenter.info during the last four weeks. Seattle, Mexico City, Medellin, New York City, Boston, Monaco, Zagreb,
Cairo, Minsk, Moscow, Islamabad, Singapure, Taipei, Seoul and Shanghai are some of the cities in which regional and international patients, among them business executives and travellers, can find Cardiac Centers using
HeartCenter.info. In New York City alone, three University Hospitals are registered in the directory, reflecting the city`s international and cosmopolitan character.
March 8th, 2002 The first information about specialized Heart Centers and Institutes on three different continents is published on
HeartCenter.info. Hospitals in the United States, China, India, Malaysia and Europe already use the recently launched international directory for Heart Centers to get in contact with patients and physicians worldwide.
Statement of the founder of HeartCenter.info:
Dear Patients, Doctors and Visitors,
We were surprised by the quick reaction of many Hospitals around the world, which sent numerous requests already in the first week after the HeartCenter.info directory went public. This impressing success showed us that there is a profound understanding by many hospitals for the new opportunities and challenges in the expanding sector of online health care.
The opportunity to reach patients and doctors far beyond national borders comes along with the challenge of overwhelming them with information, provided by thousands of different hospital websites. This huge mountain of highly valueable information would require sophisticated methods of “data mining” to generate meaningful conclusions for the individual patient. In fact, many who search for information in the web about hospitals resignate in face of these challenges. Organizing these information in a coordinated manner will surely benefit all partners in the world of health care.
To make a one stop solution available for patients and doctors around the world is the aim of this directory. We are grateful to those hospitals, who show their interest in our directory, in the name of patients and physicians who search for information about Heart Centers now and in the future.
Sincerely yours,
Ömer N. Gök
February 14th, 2002 HeartCenter.info subscribes to the Health On the Net Code of Conduct to improve the quality of the medical Internet. The Health On the Net Foundation reviewed the
international directory for Heart Centers on HeartCenter.info and included the directory to the database of its global search engine MedHunt. About the Health On the Net Foundation : the
Statement of the founder of HeartCenter.info:
Dear Patients, Doctors and Visitors,
Setting basic ethical standards for the presentation of medically relevant information on the internet has become a very important issue. To express our full support to such standards and principles, we subscribe to the Code of Conduct, defined by the internationally known and accepted Health On the Net Foundation.
The Health On the Net Foundation asked us, to make more clear to our visitors where our funding comes from and what our policy is regarding the use of advertisement.
To address the first question, let me assure you, that this website is currently privately funded and is not sponsored by any hospital, commercial organisation or company. The HeartCenter.info team consists only of people, who work in the medical fields and who are dedicated to exploit the possibilities of the internet for the use of patients, medical doctors and hospitals all around the world.
Our advertisement policy is very simple and clear : there is no and there will be no advertisement of any sort on our webpages for any commercial organisation, company or particular hospital. The international directory for heart centers shall be an “advertisement free zone”, because we know how important objective information is in medicine, especially on the internet !
Advertisement can only distract the valueable trust and attention of our visitors, therefore advertisement on HeartCenter.info is strictly prohibited.
Sincerely yours,
Ömer N. Gök
February 5th, 2002 After a record development time of only six month, the first of nine global directories for health care centers opens today to the public.
Letter of the founder of HeartCenter.info:
Dear Patients, Doctors and Visitors,
It is my pleasure to open today the global directory HeartCenter.info for patients and doctors around the world !
Heart disease, especially coronary artery disease, remains one of the biggest threats to human
health. To find the right partner against such life threatening conditions is an important issue, which thousands of patients have to face everyday. On the other hand, there are many centers for cardiac care
around the world which offer experienced personnel and specialized resources designed to help patients with heart disease. The mission of HeartCenter.info is to help The new top level
domain .info gave us the opportunity to find an address for our directory, which perfectly matches what we want to offer to the international community: free access to information about heart centers in any part of the world.
The often described phenomenon of globalization is beginning to forge new relationships between patients and hospitals across all borders and cultures. Free and affordable travel possibilities, accompanied by the free flow of information through classical and new media avenues opens the way for important developments. A growing number of patients and referring physicians actively seek information about providers of health care, in order to find the hospital which fits best to their individual needs .
As a parallel development, a highly mobile and often well-educated group of patients has emerged in many societies around the globe. We at HeartCenter.info believe, that critical evaluation of local and foreign hospitals, as well as the possibility to compare clinical services are essential tools for these patients to choose together with their physician a specialized health care provider.
HeartCenter.info intends to provide only the communication platform, on which patients, referring physicians and specialized cardiac centers can find to each other. Therefore on our websites, we publish information only about hospitals which have contacted us directly and sent us the information they want posted on our website.
This approach will guarantee the independence of both hospitals and the platform provider. To assure the importance of objective information, I am proud to announce, that we will not allow or tolerate advertisement on any of our .info hospital directories.
Speaking for the HeartCenter.info team, I wish to all patients, who may visit our service in the future, that they can find what they are looking for: professional health care for themselve and their loved ones.
Sincerely yours,
Ömer N. Gök
Welcome | Find Heart Center | Find Cancer Center | Register | Contact
Copyright © 2006 Medical Webdesign Gök