People are always talking about "the new", but the hardest thing any one of these groups will face is complete buy in from the required health groups. Although these innovations may offer something new, they are coming in to an already crowded space. And a lot of the big players have strong relationships with their client base.
Making sure that the solution allows for ease of integration with other IHE/EMR solutions is a big thing. Staying with the standards, as absconditus mentions, is a plus. If Drchrono can partner with a big player in the IHE space and provide a specific use that they are missing they will do well. All of these will break down the reasons for rejection by a client.
Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad
21–30 of 32 posts
Re: Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad
#22Love this. The health care industry was due for some needed technology innovation in regards to billing and prescriptions and the iPad is the perfect platform to do so. Can someone make a "doctor's handwriting" font?
The last time I had to get a prescription it was passed electronically to Walgreens by the Dr, no need for any paperwork.
Re: Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad
#23Glad 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…
The VA are a very special bunch. A lot of hospitals are now forward thinking in terms of solutions. Sometimes to much so. I have often had to deal with "buzz word" syndrome, explaining why Web Services, SaaS and HL7 3 are not necessarily required components of their EMR solution.
Re: Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad
#24My favorite thing about dr chrono is that these guys aren't the usual YC young kids.
Re: Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad
#25It'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…
DrChrono is offering these terms
>DrChrono’s pricing model ranges from a free base offer including storage for 1,000 patients and one doctor login to a premium offer including 10 staff logins and unlimited patient record storage for $199 per month. Setting up medical billing costs quite a bit, which is why they charge for the premium versions of the app. Kivatinos also notes that most doctors pay upwards of $50,000 for a similar electronic system.
The bigger question is, will Drchrono be forced to pay Apple the 30% in app subscription fee from June 30?
Re: Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad
#26Glad 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.
> Hospitals are run by doctors
Typically US hospitals are run by MBA types, whether it's a for-profit or not-for-profit facility. They, or their corporate overlords, make all the decisions about capital outlays, like IS. The marketing folks just have to tell them, "The docs'll love it!" No EMR system I've ever looked at successfully models my clinical thought process. I have to work around or against the tool, rather than it disappearing into the task at hand. Now ask me about modal popups...
Re: Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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.
> Hospitals are run by doctors Typically US hospitals are run by MBA types, whether it's a for-profit or not-for-profit facility. They, or their corporate overlords, make all the decisions about capital outlays, like IS. The marketing folks just have to tell them, "The docs'll love it!" No EMR system I've ever looked at successfully models my clinical thought process. I have to work around or against the tool, rather…
"Run" is a somewhat subjective term. I used to work on implementing EMR/EHR systems for radiology groups within hospitals. Twice (separate states, separate hospital systems) I arrived onsite to find that all of the radiologists had quite en masse over the implementation of one of our systems.
Re: Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad
#28I 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…
It isn't a major incentive, for interoperation but the government is sponsoring a contest for a web app that provides value to patients, providers, or researchers using patient-level data delivered through the SMART API. See the SMART platform challenge:
http://www.smartplatforms.org/challenge/
The reference platform data model is pretty limited but is an interesting start.
Re: Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad
#29I 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…
It isn't a major incentive, for interoperation but the government is sponsoring a contest for a web app that provides value to patients, providers, or researchers using patient-level data delivered through the SMART API. See the SMART platform challenge: http://www.smartplatforms.org/challenge/ The reference platform data model is pretty limited but is an interesting start.
Thanks for the heads up on this.
Re: Drchrono (YC W11) is building a health care revolution on the iPad
#30While 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").
You're mostly right - the one caveat to this is that most providers are not as "revenue focused" as you'd think. Most of them are more focused on the potential outcome ratings improvement that they could see. Often times this means going with Epic, Cerner, Allscripts, eClinicalWorks etc.
The phenomenon going on here is that CIOs don't want to get fired. They're the gatekeepers - and as someone famous put it, "No one ever got fired for buying IBM." Except in this market it's Epic.