HealthUnlocked, a social network for health related information, has announced its official U.S. launch. The digital health company, was founded in 2010 by CEO Jorge Armanet and Chief Medical Officer Dr Matt Jameson Evans.

Before joining the platform, seven out of ten patients on HealthUnlocked had never spoken to another patient with the same condition before. Known as the 'LinkedIn for health', HealthUnlocked encourages individuals to go online and share their experiences of health conditions, symptoms, treatments, and services. These are catalogued in an intelligent database, organised by communities, which signposts relevant content to people based on their profile. With over 500 patient organisations and health support charities within the network, covering over 750 health conditions globally, HealthUnlocked gives individuals information at their fingertips and the ability to connect with other people in similar situations.

"We are delighted to be officially launching in the U.S. and are passionate about helping people connect with health organisations and individuals with the same medical concerns," commented Jorge Armanet, CEO. "We are expanding rapidly because there is huge global demand for better healthcare information and support. Our constant technology evolution and expansion to the U.S. are enabling us to connect people with relevant, personalised health information anytime, anywhere."

Paul Nuki, Chief Editor at NHS Choices, said: "HealthUnlocked is a fantastic platform, offering many benefits to healthcare as a whole. We often refer NHS Choices users to HealthUnlocked forums, fully confident they will receive first class peer-to-peer advice. It's all about expert patients sharing their knowledge and, in turn, creating a new generation of experts. HealthUnlocked creates real efficiencies for the health service as a whole because we know that better informed patients make better choices and achieve better outcomes."

HealthUnlocked already has over 230,000 registered users and last month received three million site visits. Today's launch also sees the site being built with the mobile consumer in mind; 60% of people visit the site via their mobiles.

Today also marks the addition of ten U.S. health organisations joining HealthUnlocked.com. These include the U.S. Armed Forces Foundation, Hepatitis Foundation International and Patient Power Cancer Network.