4 ms·

You raise some excellent points. Our software is mainly showing providers and payers how to minimize waste, fraud, and abuse of the system so it requires a hug

You raise some excellent points. Our software is mainly showing providers and payers how to minimize waste, fraud, and abuse of the system so it requires a huge amount of customization because of each organizations use of coding. The clinical analytics comes in where they can analyze historical data and tell them "you could have saved X amount of money by coding this procedure differently" or "there is no medical reason to do procedure X if you've already done procedures Y and Z, thereby saving XX money." To analyze this data not only requires a statistician's grasp of math, but it requires medical knowledge and organizational knowledge as well. If you were smart enough to be a data/stats geek and also had an MD, plus years of experience working as a doctor in a hospital, I'm sure you are worth your weight in gold as this skill set is very rare.

stevenbedrick 16y ago
It sounds like you guys make really useful software! As you say, MDs who have the skills and are inclined to do this sort of stuff are few and far between. My grad program in medical informatics has a master's track whose graduates are mostly MDs, and they would be quite well qualified for this sort of thing... except that most of them go on to either be CIOs or implementation consultants, and typically make far more than analysts do. I think it's something that they're going to have to start teaching in medical schools, however. As more and more places start taking quality improvement seriously, being able to think systematically about clinical data is going to become a very important skill for doctors to possess. Of course, our experience thus far with trying to get it into the curriculum has not been very encouraging. It's amazing- doctors love trying out new gadgets or drugs, so they're clearly not inherently afraid of technology or of change... but try and get them to modify their curricula, and they look at you like you're crazy.

stevenbedrick 16y ago

It sounds like you guys make really useful software! As you say, MDs who have the skills and are inclined to do this sort of stuff are few and far between. My grad program in medical informatics has a master's track whose graduates are mostly MDs, and they would be quite well qualified for this sort of thing... except that most of them go on to either be CIOs or implementation consultants, and typically make far more than analysts do. I think it's something that they're going to have to start teaching in medical schools, however. As more and more places start taking quality improvement seriously, being able to think systematically about clinical data is going to become a very important skill for doctors to possess. Of course, our experience thus far with trying to get it into the curriculum has not been very encouraging. It's amazing- doctors love trying out new gadgets or drugs, so they're clearly not inherently afraid of technology or of change... but try and get them to modify their curricula, and they look at you like you're crazy.