3 ms·
I'm a doctor, this sort of thing happens all too often. In my case, yesterday, a module of AHLTA crashed in the middle of my note and I had to restart to contin
by niels_olson 16y ago
I'm a doctor, this sort of thing happens all too often. In my case, yesterday, a module of AHLTA crashed in the middle of my note and I had to restart to continue. The mouse functions in AHLTA don't support cut and paste, but luckily no one coded out ctrl-c and ctrl-v, so I was able to save a copy of my new patient's three separate complaints under ctrl-v while the system reloaded. Our system is designed with the idea of writing the note with the patient in the room (we don't even have a separate office, just the exam room and a corpsman). Fortunately my patient was herself in IT (one complaint was ... low back pain) and she was very understanding. But I'm also faced with the problem that I either choose to look at the patient or the computer. The computer is not at a convenient angle for this.
So I'm forced to either spend less time with patients and write the note afterwards, physically not look at them, see fewer patients, or write my notes in the evening after the patients have started to fade and blur together.
I actually brought in my iPad yesterday, but didn't even get through the door before I realized there would be no HIPPA-compliant way to move the information from my iPad to AHLTA, especially since I don't have ready access to encryption tools. I thought about issh, but it only adds a third computer to the security perimeter.
Anyone interested in developing a web-based medical records system with a doctor who can at least work through code, I would love to talk with you.
- rdl 16y agoFor 2008-2010, I had the pleasure of working with doctors who had to use AHLTA, AHLTA-T, and various MC4 systems (I supported a teleradiology system which interfaced loosely with it), in places where the doctors also had to carry the M9. This was an exciting job and I am glad to not be doing it anymore. There are plenty of ways the iPad could be used in a HIPAA-compliant way to access EMR/EHR, and I know of a few startups working on it. I think DoD and VA would be great users of things like this, but realistically innovation is probably going to happen in non-US markets first, and in government US markets last, due to the long approvals process and purchasing cycle. One of the easiest would probably be for telemedicine projects, possibly funded by USAID or charities or military CA, to support clinic operations -- some of the civilian hospitals in Afghanistan actually had better IT systems than the US military hospitals (!!!).
- lukev 16y agoSounds like an interesting problem... I sent you an email. EDIT: Could you email me? The only email address in your profile bounced...
- niels_olson 16y agothat's my email, it works. I don't see anything from lukev and your email is unlisted. Since I can't edit my original post any more, let me also add that I did a summer internship with Edward Tufte and have done analytic design consulting work and helped build and design one web app (tmedweb.tulane.edu). Hope you can get back to me.
- lukev 16y agoAch, sorry, didn't realize mine was unlisted. Ok, I tried using the HackerNewsers contact link, we'll see if that gets through.
- mkramlich 16y agoPosts like yours are gold for folks trying to build a health software-related startup. thanks for sharing. However, I'm personally avoiding that sector due to government/legacy/bureaucracy issues, but I hope to hell that others innovate the heck out of it, while at the same time not making it worse than before (dumb character limits, for example.)
- 2mur 16y agoHey Niels- I'm a military doc too so I feel your pain on AHLTA. Fortunately, I only have to go to AHLTA to read notes, since in pathology we use a separate system for entering reports. Pathology really needs a web-based system also. Our existing Lab IS's are all enterprise monstrosities.