Westborough Surgeon's New Tool Assists Facial Plastic Surgery Patients

Facial plastic surgery patients now can try designing their look online before meeting with their doctor, thanks to a Westborough facial plastic surgeon.

DiscoverBeauty, and its interactive BeautyCanvas, are responses to growing consumer interest in controlling their health care delivery, as well as doctors experiencing “more pressure to see more patients in a shorter period of time,” founder Dr. Min Ahn said.

The new free online service, which launched last Tuesday, “does not replace the patient-doctor interaction. An in-person consultation is what would follow,” said Ahn, of the Aesthetic Wellness Center, 2 Connector Road, Suite 2C.

 “I’ve always noticed that in doing these consultations, there’s a desktop application that we use that allows you to upload a picture, and show the patient the potential results of a procedure. And there’s a significant ‘Wow!’ effect: ‘Wow! That looks fantastic!’” said Ahn, who has practiced for just over 12 years.

“So, it’s very visually compelling. It’s interactive, and it’s educational, and it’s really, more than anything, a communication tool. And these days, consumers of health care are very interested in having some level of increasing control over their health care delivery.

“So, I’ve always thought that if you could somehow put this in the hands of both the consumer and the physician, then you’re going to have better communication between the two sides, and ideally, then have better outcomes for the patient, and more satisfied clients for the doctor, so both sides are happier.”

Building trust is a “critical” component of DiscoverBeauty, Ahn said.

The site only lists doctors who are board certified in one of four fields, he said: plastic surgery, facial plastic surgery, dermatology, and oculoplastic surgery (which deals with the eyes).

The site currently lists doctors just in New England. Ahn plans to expand nationwide later this year.

“We’re starting in Boston right now in the Greater Boston area because I practice here, I have a number of colleagues here, and also Boston is considered to be a best in class medical community,” said Ahn, a Hopkinton resident.

Ahn recalled when house calls helped physicians build trust with their patients.

His father and grandfather practiced internal medicine.

“(My father) would pick me up from school, and there was a doctor’s bag in the trunk. On the way home, he would make house calls. I would be doing my homework in the front seat as he was making a house call,” Ahn said.

“That type of health care does not exist now. What we can do is make use of technology to enhance the patient-doctor interaction. That’s what we’re trying to do.”

“We all understand that this is a new way of communicating,” he added. “The newness is there for everybody. But we feel that once they get to the site, it’ll be intuitive enough for them to use it.”