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As somebody who's trying to build a startup in this space, I'm not surprised. The root problem I see is that emphasizing "records" is completely backward. Maki
by ef4 14y ago
As somebody who's trying to build a startup in this space, I'm not surprised.
The root problem I see is that emphasizing "records" is completely backward. Making health records electronic is about 5% of the real work.
The real value is all in building systems for effective collaboration and operational excellence. Records are almost a byproduct.
My pilot customers have measurable money savings. And my product isn't even a "full-fledged electronic health record", because that's rather beside the point for my customers. Their problem isn't fundamentally about records, it's about coordination between pharmacists, nurses, health aides, and administrators.
- eropple 14y agoI work in a related part of the industry. Care to chat? Email's in my profile.
- betterunix 14y agoYou know what would really be great, and would almost certainly save money? If prescriptions could be done electronically. I am amazed by what it is like to get a prescription medicine, especially Schedule II -- the doctor types a lot into a computer, then puts special paper into a printer, prints it, hands it to me (and now we will just assume I cannot figure out how to copy it), then I walk to the pharmacy and what happens? They look at the paper, type more things, and then I get to wait 15 minutes for the medicine to be dispensed. Now, what if instead, my doctor would type in the information, and then either (a) prints a QR code that I can just bring to the pharmacy or (b) asks if I will be using the same pharmacy as last time, and has the prescription sent their automatically, so it is waiting for me when I arrive? Let each doctor's office create a prescription record in some database, and let each pharmacy update that database when the prescription is filled -- why rely on copy-evident paper, when we can rely on computers instead? We could even connect this to an EMR system, so that doctors not only know what a patient was prescribed, but whether or not the prescription was actually filled (when I was last prescribed an opiate painkiller, I never filled the prescription; yet my followup appointment involved the receptionist printing a sheet that showed the prescription, with no indication one way or the other if I had bothered with it). I understand that regulations and so forth and probably the doom of these ideas. Still, it would be nice to get something a little better than the ludicrous anachronism we have today.
- ShirtlessRod 14y ago"You know what would really be great, and would almost certainly save money? If prescriptions could be done electronically." This can be done today, and frequently is (depending on the organization). Schedule II is a bit nastier since there are regulations about electronic delivery, but the vast majority of medications can be sent electronically in exactly the manner you describe. Just two weeks ago I was in for a follow-up and they ordered some meds that were automatically sent to the pharmacy, where I simply picked them up. Easy.
- leonth 14y agoWhat you describe here has been happening in Singapore public sector for quite some time. Most patients in a hospital will fill their prescriptions in the hospital pharmacy anyway to enjoy subsidies. Some patients still prefer to have some kind of paper with them, so the doctor will actually print out the prescription but the pharmacy will still process it from the system anyway. When the pharmacy is not busy, we will also pre-process pending (and short) prescriptions from the system and the patient would not need to wait that long for the medicines. It's also a boon for the pharmacy operations because they can smooth out workload throughout the day by pre-processing prescriptions before the peak hours.
- ef4 14y agoThe vast majority of US pharmacies are already able to receive prescriptions electronically from physicians. SureScripts [http://www.surescripts.com/ http://www.surescripts.com/] is the leader in that space. If you don't already have e-prescribing, it's probably because your physician is behind the times. The above applies to doctor-to-pharmacy communication. For any other combination, paper and faxes still reign supreme. Examples that are still almost always faxes and paper: pharmacy to visiting nurse, specialist physician to primary care physician, physician to assisted living facility, even pharmacy to original doctor when asking for refill extension.