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Today's New Regulation Could Spark a Health Tech Revolution

23 points by nogaleviner 12y ago

sunshinerag 12y ago
Regulation doesn't spark anything. It snuffs thing out. Especially when it is touted as a solution to problem created by previous regulations.
- pessimizer 12y ago
  I'll remember that while I'm busy trusting that the food I eat and the medicine I take doesn't kill me.
  - wyager 12y ago
    Funny enough, I trust the same thing of the food I eat when I'm visiting countries with no FDA equivalent. It's almost as if the market disincentivizes selling bad food.
    - pessimizer 12y ago
      And I'm sure you don't trust the same thing of the drugs you take when you're visiting countries with no FDA equivalent. It's probably because the market incentivizes snake oil and counterfeits.
Shivetya 12y ago
Bribe to Doctors? It put many independents out of business, selling them long held practices to big conglomerates who could afford the software, computers, and the people necessary to get all their records into the new systems. Just as with the rest of the ACA, this was all about reward those who paid the politicians through contributions. This meant big pharma, hospital/doctor conglomerates, and insurance companies. It certainly wasn't to help the average consumer or their hometown Doctors.
Einstalbert 12y ago
I want to do this. I want to give these guys my e-mail address and some basic info and see all of my health data charted out... But I did that with Google Health and it went the way of the dinosaur. IS there a consensus on this web service among the HN community?
- nogaleviner 12y ago
  Hey, PicnicHealth founder here. We're probably too new to have any kind of a consensus but would love to chat offline about the company (Noga at picnichealth) It shouldn't be much work for you to get things set up. I spent a lot of time trying to get straight what went wrong with google health and, while there are lots of theories, I'm got convinced that data availability played a big part. That's what's finally changing.
specialist 12y ago
Hi Noga. Forgive me, I'm not understanding. How do I get my health records? I designed and implemented the backend(s) for 5 regional health exchanges, did some front end work on our physicians portal, prototyped the patient portal (shopped around to our clients). I also participated in the competitive NHIN interop effort (we were a sub on the Northrup Grumman team). If you've seen the Mirth stack, my stuff was roughly the same (at the time). Every participant in our exchange (hospitals, labs, scripts, clinics, insurers) jealously guarded their data, hoping to monetize it. Maybe the scope of "meaningful use" has expanded, but when it started it was just a dozen or so fields. (The phrase "meaningful use" seemed to be an example of unintentional irony.) I can't gleen your business model. And unless you have data access / sharing agreements, I don't see how you can get my records. (I'm a few years out of date, so maybe things have changed.) If you were creating a "white label" patient portal for your customers (e.g. hospitals) to implement, that'd be cool. If you were kickstarting a lobbying group to empower patients with access to their own data, I'd definitely contribute.
- nogaleviner 12y ago
  Think mint.com for medical records. Literally. We help patients find their patient portals. We credential them in (just like mint) with username and password, providing a tool that pulls their data out. We normalize it and display in a meaningful way. Then we go back to the hacky solution of automating e-faxing back out to keep other doctors in the loop. It's definitely nuts that this would be the solution, but I don't think we can wait for HIEs or for someone to get data access/sharing agreements for exactly the reason you state. Every player is jealously guarding their data. You're right that we don't get the complete record, but whats in there is actually pretty rich.
  - mazimi 12y ago
    Mint.com helps me with financial planning and budgeting. What does access to my medical records help me with? As a patient, does access to historical lab values provide me with actionable information or are the latest results, communicated to me by my physician more valuable? Do you use a predictive model to provide the patient with a health forecast (ie. https://archimedesmodel.com/indigo https://archimedesmodel.com/indigo, they have an API)? I check my Mint.com account regularly, what would drive me to check my Picnic account regularly?
abstractbill 12y ago
I've lost track of many of the different doctors I've seen over the years. Is there any practical way for me to get at that kind of information?
pierlux 12y ago
Came here expecting to read about the Supreme Court decision about the stuff companies can refuse their employees...
webhat 12y ago
I'm assuming this is HL7v3, if I remember correctly the transmission is only setting a permission on the patient side to allow the primary care physician to transmit the data to a third party, c.q. another physician.

23 points by nogaleviner 12y ago

Regulation doesn't spark anything. It snuffs thing out. Especially when it is touted as a solution to problem created by previous regulations.

pessimizer 12y ago
I'll remember that while I'm busy trusting that the food I eat and the medicine I take doesn't kill me.
- wyager 12y ago
  Funny enough, I trust the same thing of the food I eat when I'm visiting countries with no FDA equivalent. It's almost as if the market disincentivizes selling bad food.
  - pessimizer 12y ago
    And I'm sure you don't trust the same thing of the drugs you take when you're visiting countries with no FDA equivalent. It's probably because the market incentivizes snake oil and counterfeits.

Shivetya 12y ago

Bribe to Doctors? It put many independents out of business, selling them long held practices to big conglomerates who could afford the software, computers, and the people necessary to get all their records into the new systems. Just as with the rest of the ACA, this was all about reward those who paid the politicians through contributions. This meant big pharma, hospital/doctor conglomerates, and insurance companies. It certainly wasn't to help the average consumer or their hometown Doctors.

Einstalbert 12y ago

I want to do this. I want to give these guys my e-mail address and some basic info and see all of my health data charted out... But I did that with Google Health and it went the way of the dinosaur. IS there a consensus on this web service among the HN community?

nogaleviner 12y ago
Hey, PicnicHealth founder here. We're probably too new to have any kind of a consensus but would love to chat offline about the company (Noga at picnichealth) It shouldn't be much work for you to get things set up. I spent a lot of time trying to get straight what went wrong with google health and, while there are lots of theories, I'm got convinced that data availability played a big part. That's what's finally changing.

specialist 12y ago

Hi Noga. Forgive me, I'm not understanding. How do I get my health records? I designed and implemented the backend(s) for 5 regional health exchanges, did some front end work on our physicians portal, prototyped the patient portal (shopped around to our clients). I also participated in the competitive NHIN interop effort (we were a sub on the Northrup Grumman team). If you've seen the Mirth stack, my stuff was roughly the same (at the time). Every participant in our exchange (hospitals, labs, scripts, clinics, insurers) jealously guarded their data, hoping to monetize it. Maybe the scope of "meaningful use" has expanded, but when it started it was just a dozen or so fields. (The phrase "meaningful use" seemed to be an example of unintentional irony.) I can't gleen your business model. And unless you have data access / sharing agreements, I don't see how you can get my records. (I'm a few years out of date, so maybe things have changed.) If you were creating a "white label" patient portal for your customers (e.g. hospitals) to implement, that'd be cool. If you were kickstarting a lobbying group to empower patients with access to their own data, I'd definitely contribute.

nogaleviner 12y ago
Think mint.com for medical records. Literally. We help patients find their patient portals. We credential them in (just like mint) with username and password, providing a tool that pulls their data out. We normalize it and display in a meaningful way. Then we go back to the hacky solution of automating e-faxing back out to keep other doctors in the loop. It's definitely nuts that this would be the solution, but I don't think we can wait for HIEs or for someone to get data access/sharing agreements for exactly the reason you state. Every player is jealously guarding their data. You're right that we don't get the complete record, but whats in there is actually pretty rich.
- mazimi 12y ago
  Mint.com helps me with financial planning and budgeting. What does access to my medical records help me with? As a patient, does access to historical lab values provide me with actionable information or are the latest results, communicated to me by my physician more valuable? Do you use a predictive model to provide the patient with a health forecast (ie. https://archimedesmodel.com/indigo https://archimedesmodel.com/indigo, they have an API)? I check my Mint.com account regularly, what would drive me to check my Picnic account regularly?

abstractbill 12y ago

I've lost track of many of the different doctors I've seen over the years. Is there any practical way for me to get at that kind of information?

pierlux 12y ago

Came here expecting to read about the Supreme Court decision about the stuff companies can refuse their employees...

webhat 12y ago

I'm assuming this is HL7v3, if I remember correctly the transmission is only setting a permission on the patient side to allow the primary care physician to transmit the data to a third party, c.q. another physician.