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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

#81

Post by akrasia »

wbercx wrote: post #43
md2be wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy is a first year resident and should be working 70 hrs a week perfecting his skills. If he is cheating the system now by not being fully committed, I can only imagine what he will be doing 7 years from now.

Isn't technology meant to make our lives easier? If this can increase the productivity of doctors, I reckon it's a good thing. That way they can spend those full 70 hours a week perfecting their skills, instead of wasting 20 hours to enter and retrieve data every week.

exactly what I'm trying to do

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

#82

Post by akrasia »

DanBC wrote: post #44
wbercx wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't technology meant to make our lives easier? If this can increase the productivity of doctors, I reckon it's a good thing. That way they can spend those full 70 hours a week perfecting their skills, instead of wasting 20 hours to enter and retrieve data every week.

Why don't doctors have clerical staff to do the data entry?

depends on where you work and how much staff is hired for this type of work, but with the way the EMR is set up, and who legally has to start and sign notes (a doctor), you cannot avoid some data entry unless it is somehow automated for you

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

#83

Post by akrasia »

japhyr wrote: post #40
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…

It seems liability would be another reason to have a firm legal foundation. You wouldn't want to miss an edge case that results in a patient's death. If an investigation showed that your translation software made a mistake that led a doctor to make a bad decision, you'd be in a pretty ugly spot. This is part legal, and part QA, I believe.

Yea, this is why I didn't want to start a company in healthcare. It's ugly.

I think I can avoid the whole thing by having my software just be a tool, not a final read, and doctors will still have to double check the numbers against the PDF hardcopy. It will just take 1 minute or less to glance at 10 values or so and make sure they match up compared to typing it in themselves

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

#85

Post by akrasia »

jonaldomo wrote: post #28

I would be willing to bet the hospital you work at is paying several million a year for their EMR and all sorts of smaller contracts that probably nobody knows about. One of those contracts probably supports the integration you are looking to do and has not been configured yet because it has not went high up enough the food chain. I think you are better off asking contacting the IT department of the hospital and have…

Good advice. I heard somewhere that they did have this ability but it was a very pricey add-on. It was just a rumor though. I'll check with IT.

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

#86

Post by akrasia »

tpainton wrote: post #46

Forget coding for health care. MD and coder for 15 years. You will make 10x the profit if you avoid the regulations and liability of health care software.. In addition, I'm not sure you have any idea how little few time you're about to have.

I've struggled with this for awhile. I've had some thoughts about improving medical education that would avoid the legal hassles of healthcare and generate a good income. That idea is for another time though.

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

#87

Post by akrasia »

anoncow wrote: post #23

As a fellow doc, i say welcome! Have you looked at DICOM? Most medical s/w, h/w support it. And congrats on the radio residency!

Yea DICOM is for imaging though (CT scan, MRI, etc ...) but I think you know that already. Even though DICOM is a standard, there are still stupid things that go on (e.g. radiologists have to hand type radiation doses that the patient received because apps do not talk to each other).

HL-7 is the standard for other medical apps. Even though these standards exist, the problems are still there and solutions are sometimes too pricey for hospitals.

Thanks for the encouraging words ... it's been a long road.

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

#88

Post by akrasia »

rdl wrote: post #6

Is there some reason the pulmonary machine doesn't do HL7 or equivalent? Is it just not configured?

Yea, I have to look into this, but even if it does do HL7, you need to write software to extract what you want and present it in a meaningful way to the other application.

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

#89

Post by akrasia »

yeukhon wrote: post #20

As a responsible hospital, I will have to ensure your software will work 99% of the time and that if anything goes wrong you'd be paying the loss. That's a dangerous field to get into.

Yea, it's an messy area to start a company in. I'm trying to learn how to cover my bases as I go along but if I'm paralyzed by fear forever I'm not going to move forward.

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

#90

Post by akrasia »

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…

Thanks for this buddy.
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