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Thinking of starting a Health IT company? Here are top three industry challenges

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Re: Thinking of starting a Health IT company? Here are top three industry challenges

#21

Post by tel »

rficcaglia wrote: post #7
tel wrote: post #2

I'm in the 7th month of starting a Health IT company and would be happy to answer (some) questions if anyone has any.

I'm in the 41st month of a Health IT startup and I'd be happy to give you a preview of the questions you havent even thought of :) Honestly if you can't fund full speed (dev, QA, support, sales, mktg, ops, clinical studies) for a minimum three years before the first hospital sale , assuming you are selling to hospitals, then get out now. Happy to shar war stories over a pint!

We're not selling to hospitals, but we might someday... so that's a pretty damn good data point.

Re: Thinking of starting a Health IT company? Here are top three industry challenges

#22

Post by lucidrains »

drstewart wrote: post #18
sachinag wrote: post #13

This article understates the issues delivering software solutions to patients, providers, or payers. The lack of data standards has completely crippled the ability for new companies/products to innovate and break through. When I worked at a healthcare VC, we deemphasized IT in favor of medical devices because the path for success is much clearer and easier to trod. The reason I can be so confident that it's the data…

What about HL7?

it's delimited by pipes... i mean, it is a standard, but it's far from ideal.

Re: Thinking of starting a Health IT company? Here are top three industry challenges

#23

Post by rmorrison »

sachinag wrote: post #13

This article understates the issues delivering software solutions to patients, providers, or payers. The lack of data standards has completely crippled the ability for new companies/products to innovate and break through. When I worked at a healthcare VC, we deemphasized IT in favor of medical devices because the path for success is much clearer and easier to trod. The reason I can be so confident that it's the data…

I agree that the lack of data standards and interconnectivity is on of several big problems that have traditionally crippled health IT innovation. But, advanced technology is becoming so cheap, and the pain points have become so large, that companies are changing.

Technologies that can compensate for inconsistencies between existing systems (like my company's product, http://comprehend.com) are enabling health IT to do things previously unthinkable.

Re: Thinking of starting a Health IT company? Here are top three industry challenges

#24

Post by FireBeyond »

guylhem wrote: post #6

As a health IT professional who did try, and will try again in 2013, this article is spot on. There are differences between France and the US - especially in the mindset - but the payment system is very similar. In fact, the current french system (used for hospital billing since 2004, and tested for 10 years before that) was based on the US medicare DRG approach. My job is to make patients pay as much as we can legal…

"I would like to insist on the "incentives" topic with a quick example: I previously developed production analysis software to find and exploit the cases where an hospital could be more efficient and thus make more money (long story short, see one of my previous posts on http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4826314 for more details) As I like to say, this is as good as printing money - I can say precisely what should be changed in a billing statement, why, how much it will gain, and the probability to find matching evidence in the patient file."

There are entire companies devoted to nothing more than this - taking a ICD9/10 diagnosis, some procedure codes and massaging the bill to get the biggest possible bill (and vice versa, as an insurer, minimizing the same).

Re: Thinking of starting a Health IT company? Here are top three industry challenges

#25

Post by Mz »

rficcaglia wrote: post #7
tel wrote: post #2

I'm in the 7th month of starting a Health IT company and would be happy to answer (some) questions if anyone has any.

I'm in the 41st month of a Health IT startup and I'd be happy to give you a preview of the questions you havent even thought of :) Honestly if you can't fund full speed (dev, QA, support, sales, mktg, ops, clinical studies) for a minimum three years before the first hospital sale , assuming you are selling to hospitals, then get out now. Happy to shar war stories over a pint!

I would be thrilled to pieces if either of you emailed me and let me know what you are up to, etc.

Thanks.

Re: Thinking of starting a Health IT company? Here are top three industry challenges

#26

Post by FireBeyond »

error54 wrote: post #17

As a current developer for a health IT company, much of this is true. Even with the current incentives to go electronic, many doctors just simply prefer paper charts and are willing to forgo the $40k a year just to keep things the status quo. My particular company is growing by leaps and bounds because we started with a very simple Practice Management model and grew out from there whereas I see a lot of startups try…

You should also consider the pre-hospital field - a paramedic/EMT in the field with a Toughbook, etc (where they're not still with paper) is typically using horrible software, with little flexibility to what by nature can be a rapidly changing encounter. I see this every day, and hear the cursing that accompanies it, and think to myself that there is so much that could be done to improve this.

Re: Thinking of starting a Health IT company? Here are top three industry challenges

#27

Post by robbiep »

lucidrains wrote: post #14
rmorrison wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would recommend trying, especially if you have medical training and know the space. While it is difficult, with the appropriate go-to-market strategy and determination you can get a foothold and grow from there.

thanks! i will try, at least for a little while. honestly, at this point, i think a true disruption can only happen if diagnostic tests are put into the consumer's hands instead of being held hostage at the hospital, and we just aren't there yet.

Hi - As a fellow med student I'm interested in what you mean here.. Are you suggesting that patients should be able to order their own tests?

Re: Thinking of starting a Health IT company? Here are top three industry challenges

#28

Post by FireBeyond »

lucidrains wrote: post #3

i've been thinking about how to create something that can disrupt the medical industry for a long time, ever since beginning medical school. the sad truth is that medical industry doesn't welcome software disruptions. software adoption is usually a bureaucratic process due to the direct risk to human health, not to mention HIPAA and other regulations. quality of the software is not as important as selling the softwar…

I'd also like to throw myself into the ring as someone with significant medical and IT experience curious and keen to do something here. Perhaps contact me (and anyone else is welcome to, too), if you'd like to talk further.

Re: Thinking of starting a Health IT company? Here are top three industry challenges

#29

Post by trhtrsh »

guylhem wrote: post #6

As a health IT professional who did try, and will try again in 2013, this article is spot on. There are differences between France and the US - especially in the mindset - but the payment system is very similar. In fact, the current french system (used for hospital billing since 2004, and tested for 10 years before that) was based on the US medicare DRG approach. My job is to make patients pay as much as we can legal…

> My job is to make patients pay as much as we can legally make them pay, using any mean necessary as long as it is legal.

> I did not explore that much, but there seemed to be a demand for a service to selectively reduce profits, to maximize government subsidies in some units - something utterly disgusting for a libertarian.

So your morality teaches that it's OK to scam patients, but not OK to scam the government?

Re: Thinking of starting a Health IT company? Here are top three industry challenges

#30

Post by narcissus »

lucidrains wrote: post #22
drstewart wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about HL7?

it's delimited by pipes... i mean, it is a standard, but it's far from ideal.

Technically it's delimited by whatever character is decided to be the delimiter, which is even better :)

Having said that, it still seems to get data between all sorts of systems in the hospital.

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