Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad • Hacker News Board

Re: Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad

#11

Post by phlux » Tue, Mar 15, 2011, 10:20 PM UTC

We built something similar 3 years ago (Contineo, which was iPhone based (pre-iPad)) and was rejected by YC... We had too much trouble getting any traction - even though we had a working product and great contacts in the industry.

I am still in the healthcare space (I design hospitals and their networks/datacenters etc) and am currently doing SFGH in San Francisco.

I believe in the idea (obviously) -- but there are still a great number of hurdles to overcome to get hospitals to adopt tablets (especially iPad).

I am working on a pivot of Contineo, that could also work with DR Chrono - and am talking to several facilities about pilots -- but most everyone is taking it slow to adopt iPads due to Apples large % of revenue, the supportability - lack of control etc.

I am building a health care platform for android at the moment - I'd be interested in knowing what Dr Chrono has to give up to Apple... I haven't looked at their business model too closely - but the market is ripe for change.

Re: Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad

#12

Post by absconditus » Tue, Mar 15, 2011, 10:23 PM UTC

bherms wrote: post #5

While I agree that the healthcare industry is ripe for innovation, I think it's a very hard industry to get into. My gf is an ICU nurse here and is constantly telling me how averse to technological change everyone in the hospital is. Nurses and doctors have even quit when the hospital has implemented new software in the past. In addition, a lot of people are jumping on the healthcare bandwagon right now. Lots of grea…

As with most industries, sales of healthcare software are made to executives and not to the actual users. Sometimes an outspoken physician will be involved in the sales process, but the final decision is usually made by the CIO/CTO and CFO and is typically made for financial reasons more than anything ("Vendor X promised us that our revenue per patient would increase by Y").

Re: Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad

#13

Post by siculars » Tue, Mar 15, 2011, 10:31 PM UTC

waterside81 wrote: post #8

Glad to see DrChrono taking health care on and I hope many others follow. With that said ... The problem with the healthcare industry's lack of modern technologies isn't a technology issue - the tech that doctors and hospitals need to manage EHR/EMR/PHR existed 20 years ago. This isn't a computer problem, it's a human problem. You wouldn't believe the hoops I had to jump through to get a Django app into the VA in Los…

>I think the true tipping point will be when people of a new generation (readers of HN perhaps?) become hospital administrators and with that bring a new culture and view of technology.

I have very little hope of that happening. Hospitals are run by doctors and frankly, they lack the technical foresight and respect for non-doctor advisors (cio, cto, etc.) to make correct technical decisions.

Re: Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad

#14

Post by arctangent » Tue, Mar 15, 2011, 10:32 PM UTC

My day job is in healthcare informatics in the UK. I'd love to see us making more stuff like this, but I think that it somewhere gets lost in all the bureaucracy.

We're currently diverting a lot of our considerable efforts on "interoperability", which will hopefully see this kind of thing take off over here.

The geek in me is still waiting for the Tricorder, of course: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricorder

Re: Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad

#15

Post by absconditus » Tue, Mar 15, 2011, 10:37 PM UTC

siculars wrote: post #9

I take my hat off to what Drchrono is doing in the space. They are moving the discussion forward. It's a fact, Dr's love the iPad. They want more medical and healthcare related apps on the iPad. Drchrono's platform is a big win. Nevertheless, getting one doctor or a small office of doctors to use an EMR/EHR is one thing, getting an institution to use a system is quite another. I work for such an institution and have…

The government is pushing standards for interoperability. The organization responsible is HITSP. The standards that they are pushing are the typical designed-by-committee mess.

HL7 2.x is the only standard that is widely supported in the industry. I have not come across many systems that offer no HL7 2.x interface options. The IHE monstrosity is picking up steam too.

Re: Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad

#16

Post by absconditus » Tue, Mar 15, 2011, 10:39 PM UTC

absconditus wrote: post #15

siculars wrote: post #9

I take my hat off to what Drchrono is doing in the space. They are moving the discussion forward. It's a fact, Dr's love the iPad. They want more medical and healthcare related apps on the iPad. Drchrono's platform is a big win. Nevertheless, getting one doctor or a small office of doctors to use an EMR/EHR is one thing, getting an institution to use a system is quite another. I work for such an institution and have…

The government is pushing standards for interoperability. The organization responsible is HITSP. The standards that they are pushing are the typical designed-by-committee mess. HL7 2.x is the only standard that is widely supported in the industry. I have not come across many systems that offer no HL7 2.x interface options. The IHE monstrosity is picking up steam too.

I forgot to mention that the government is pushing the HITSP-chosen standards by making them part of "meaningful use" standards that are required for ARRA funds.

Re: Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad

#17

Post by siculars » Tue, Mar 15, 2011, 10:43 PM UTC

absconditus wrote: post #15

siculars wrote: post #9

I take my hat off to what Drchrono is doing in the space. They are moving the discussion forward. It's a fact, Dr's love the iPad. They want more medical and healthcare related apps on the iPad. Drchrono's platform is a big win. Nevertheless, getting one doctor or a small office of doctors to use an EMR/EHR is one thing, getting an institution to use a system is quite another. I work for such an institution and have…

The government is pushing standards for interoperability. The organization responsible is HITSP. The standards that they are pushing are the typical designed-by-committee mess. HL7 2.x is the only standard that is widely supported in the industry. I have not come across many systems that offer no HL7 2.x interface options. The IHE monstrosity is picking up steam too.

I've been wading through this muck for quite a while, I'm well aware of these "standards". I'm not looking for standards, per se, I would be far more interested for a product specific api. Think Twitter, FB or Google. Standards by committee especially when doctors are involved is a recipe for utter disaster as we have seen time and time again.

We are in the midst of deploying some of your competitors. Ping me offline to chat some more.

Re: Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad

#18

Post by mleverne » Tue, Mar 15, 2011, 11:03 PM UTC

arctangent wrote: post #14

My day job is in healthcare informatics in the UK. I'd love to see us making more stuff like this, but I think that it somewhere gets lost in all the bureaucracy. We're currently diverting a lot of our considerable efforts on "interoperability", which will hopefully see this kind of thing take off over here. The geek in me is still waiting for the Tricorder, of course: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricorder

I was at HIMSS a few years back and there was a dictation device that hung around the neck of Physicians made by Vocera (http://www.vocera.com/products/b2000_badge.aspx). There was an easter egg in it, which when a user asked "Scotty, beam me up", it would make the transporter sound. It's a start.

Re: Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad

#19

Post by noonespecial » Tue, Mar 15, 2011, 11:14 PM UTC

absconditus wrote: post #15

siculars wrote: post #9

I take my hat off to what Drchrono is doing in the space. They are moving the discussion forward. It's a fact, Dr's love the iPad. They want more medical and healthcare related apps on the iPad. Drchrono's platform is a big win. Nevertheless, getting one doctor or a small office of doctors to use an EMR/EHR is one thing, getting an institution to use a system is quite another. I work for such an institution and have…

The government is pushing standards for interoperability. The organization responsible is HITSP. The standards that they are pushing are the typical designed-by-committee mess. HL7 2.x is the only standard that is widely supported in the industry. I have not come across many systems that offer no HL7 2.x interface options. The IHE monstrosity is picking up steam too.

Unfortunately, it seems to be a catch-22. If you don't involve doctors in the design, you'll end up with something that doesn't cover enough ground to be usable, if you do involve them, they'll mistake their (admittedly large) domain expertise in medicine for expertise in system design and bike-shed the thing into boondoggle territory. Any standard is going to be a tough proposition.

Re: Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad

#20

Post by dr_ » Tue, Mar 15, 2011, 11:15 PM UTC

absconditus wrote: post #10

dr_ wrote: post #2

It's great to see more and more companies tackling the healthcare industry. Although you can get the most cutting edge medical treatment in terms of surgical procedures and CT scanners - storing and communicating most types of data is archaic. It's primarily because most physicians and hospitals do not see how moving to an electronic medical records system helps their bottom line, with the exception of electronic pre…

$700 per month or $44K total is not high for such a system. It is not uncommon for enterprise systems to cost thousands of dollars per user. You must realize that the sales cycle for a hospital can be years, 24 hour support must be provided, hospital IT staff is often incompetent and clinicians are very demanding users. Disclosure: I work for one of Allscript's competitors.

This is not for a hospital. Its for physicians in private practice. It's $700 per physician per month and hardly anyone is signing up. I'm sure for very large groups there is discount pricing and they must be signing up, but for smaller groups or solo practitioners this is not a reasonable option.