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I'm a doctor - help me disrupt healthcare

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: I'm a doctor - help me disrupt healthcare

#71

Post by thetylerhayes »

bigchewy wrote: post #57

Hi, I'm a 3 time healthcare entrepreneur (10 years) who has been down this path, and many like it, several times already. The problem you are describing is well known and in your hospital's IT queue, just so low on the list to be invisible. As others have rightly pointed out, the technical issues are perhaps 10% of the problem. On top of that, because each EHR is configured so differently, your solution will be a con…

Agreed.

What this means is that usually in the medical world you can't just build a product or service and sell it to EHR/EMR providers. Their (e.g., Epic, eClinicalWeb) customer is hospitals and clinics. So you need to get hospitals and clinics to demand/buy what you offer. Only then EMRs will pay attention and only because increasing amounts of their customers are knocking down their door asking for your product.

Very rare is the case where an EMR will see the market opportunity you're carving out and buy your product. They don't care. They'll either buy your company once you get big enough to represent a sizable addition to their revenue (single millions is not even close) or just build an imitation feature once they're forced to.

Re: I'm a doctor - help me disrupt healthcare

#73

Post by mv »

md2be wrote: post #35

This doesn't make sense. He says he is a first year resident and is starting a new program next year?

This question clearly reveals your lack of understanding of the US medical education system.

I hate responding to trolls, but your comments through the thread have been a bit abrasive to me. Accusing someone of 'cheating the system', saying someone has to work 70 hrs a week, only having one shot, saying they should quit, telling them they must work 13hours a day to learn.

I'm assuming you're in (or rather I hope you are) medical school and not just someone applying. Here is the rub. Some people don't have to try to do well. There are people who never studied for the MCAT and scored 36+. They didn't have to really try to do well.

A radiology at the place he mentioned is very competitive, so it is safe to assume this guy was at the top of his class. The intelligence/knowledge difference between the top of the class and the bottom is enormous. Not everyone is the same. Don't fault him for what he wants to do in his free time.

Re: I'm a doctor - help me disrupt healthcare

#74

Post by datburg »

tpainton wrote: post #45

As a physician of 15 years in internal medicine all I have to say is residency must have become ridiculously easy if you have time to start a company.. For me, 100 hours a week made that impossible so I waited until I was done. Your idea is an old one. It's been deliberated and contemplated. You forget that you're writing code that is essentially a medical tool that potentially affects peoples lives. You will need ma…

Hey there! Do you have a research position for a fresh MD graduate? Thanks!

Re: I'm a doctor - help me disrupt healthcare

#75

Post by datburg »

zekenie wrote: post #36

I've done some work in clinical research and I can tell you that you might need a legal cofounder more than a technical one! I had ways to automate dozens of employees jobs away just by integrating data systems, but in the eyes of the hospital it was too risky. They didn't want to violate HIPPA. I wrote a little thing about it for The Scientist: http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/35249/... I'd love…

Help me find a research position! I am a fresh MD graduate. Thanks!

Re: I'm a doctor - help me disrupt healthcare

#76

Post by akrasia »

smalter wrote: post #8

My unsolicited advice: rather than being "fairly certain" that you can make $500/mo with your idea so that you would prefer to start a company first, I suggest that you reverse the order of operations. First, be certain that you can make $500/mo by building it yourself and get the hospital paying $500/mo. Then, if the opportunity looks good, start organizing (aka building an organization, a company) around that. You'…

Your advice is duly noted. I am planning to talk to the director of the pulmonary team sometime this week and see if he is interested. I know most of the doctors who work in the lab will welcome the software. Seeing that most large hospitals pay 50+ million for their EHR/EMR setup, $500/month sounds reasonable.

I looked briefly into building it myself (just in case this thread did not get a good response), and I can parse out the text using the pdf-reader gem and now I just need to use some regex to match what I want and then stick those values into a report.

Thanks again for the advice.

Re: I'm a doctor - help me disrupt healthcare

#77

Post by thetylerhayes »

mv wrote: post #73
md2be wrote: post #35

This doesn't make sense. He says he is a first year resident and is starting a new program next year?

This question clearly reveals your lack of understanding of the US medical education system. I hate responding to trolls, but your comments through the thread have been a bit abrasive to me. Accusing someone of 'cheating the system', saying someone has to work 70 hrs a week, only having one shot, saying they should quit, telling them they must work 13hours a day to learn. I'm assuming you're in (or rather I hope you…

Thank you for writing this. I hadn't taken the time to look at the usernames among all the negativity in this thread and realize much of it was from the same person.

Side note when looking at your profile: looks like both hnofficehours.com and hackernewsers.com are down/no more? Dead links.

Re: I'm a doctor - help me disrupt healthcare

#78

Post by akrasia »

thetylerhayes wrote: post #14
smalter wrote: post #8

My unsolicited advice: rather than being "fairly certain" that you can make $500/mo with your idea so that you would prefer to start a company first, I suggest that you reverse the order of operations. First, be certain that you can make $500/mo by building it yourself and get the hospital paying $500/mo. Then, if the opportunity looks good, start organizing (aka building an organization, a company) around that. You'…

Motion seconded. It sounds like you're seeing a lot of problems in healthcare. That's good you're noticing them. It sounds like you also want to solve some of them, mostly because you're fed up with them being problems. That's also good. The best kinds of solutions often come from scratching your own itch. Another similar recommendation: get more specific about what you want to solve. "Disrupting healthcare" is a pla…

I'm taking your advice and I'll hack together a prototype and see if the administration will bite.

Re: I'm a doctor - help me disrupt healthcare

#79

Post by akrasia »

jtheory wrote: post #65
smalter wrote: post #8

My unsolicited advice: rather than being "fairly certain" that you can make $500/mo with your idea so that you would prefer to start a company first, I suggest that you reverse the order of operations. First, be certain that you can make $500/mo by building it yourself and get the hospital paying $500/mo. Then, if the opportunity looks good, start organizing (aka building an organization, a company) around that. You'…

I'd suggest instead talking to the people who actually make buying decisions, and find out what other purchases they have approved recently (and how many other people needed to give approval -- e.g., the IT department), and why. Unfortunately I suspect the news will be discouraging. Don't just try selling something that interacts with medical data unless you have serious quality control (you may need various ISO cert…

I will be talking to the purchasing dept after I build a prototype to show the director. I am aware that this will be an uphill battle since everyone in healthcare is paranoid including doctors and admins.

Re: I'm a doctor - help me disrupt healthcare

#80

Post by akrasia »

bigchewy wrote: post #60
PeterisP wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you gain 10 minutes/week for every surgeon in USA, then you've done more healing than you could by simply being a great surgeon for your whole life.

Have lower level people, such as a Medical Assistant or a 1st year resident do the data entry. ahhh, feels good to do more healing than a great surgeon, before I've even had my Sunday coffee.

Unfortunately, the note that has to be entered in the EMR has to be started and signed by a fellow (a person who has finished residency but still in training before becoming an attending doctor for those who don't know), and this is the note with the data, and so I (a first year resident) would have to be sitting next to the fellow, he would have to start the note, then I would have to switch seats with him, do some data entry, then he would have to write his impression ("normal", "COPD", "asthma", but in more doctor like terms) and sign the note. The way the system is set up makes this impractical.
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