Please help validate this idea
I want to build a service that collates and stores patients health record in the cloud, so they can access it anytime and from anywhere. My goal is to solve the problem of fragmented medical records.
I just set up a Twitter poll to get feedback from people, please help retweet the poll. https://twitter.com/AugustusOnyeka/status/1049967863879147520?s=20
The idea has merit, but as everyone else has mentioned, regulations, security concerns, customer acquisition etc. can be challenging.
Just a random thought - why not start with a small niche - dental data. It will be focused. Working with dentist office might be easier than working with large hospitals, etc.
That's a great idea. Pick a niche where a customer may move between service providers and needs the same tests done every time... e.g. scanning the jaw, etc... The trust factor needs to be level 9999. Some sort of blockchain-backed ISO-level government approved tamper-proof model. Otherwise, the risk of messing up a patient is too high.
Thanks for your comment Vlad. Trust is earned. I guess we will have to earn the trust of customers.
Thanks for your reply Salil. The challenges you highlighted are real, but we will give our best to see that we overcome them. As per niche, i think the customers will eventually wonder why they can't have all the other records on the cloud. We will start with a niche location and see how it goes.
@exalted - Best of luck. Hope you succeed. The healthcare industry is in desperate need for innovation and people like you who are willing to make a big impact.
Please keep us posted on your progress.
Thanks Salil. I'll keep you posted
Hey @exalted
I am working on a similar project, here are my thoughts
First and foremost, you will need to work on a lot of security measures. Patient data is extremely sensitive so additional security measures will be required.
If you are planning with the government, then you will need cross alot of redtape and usually decisions/meetings take many months. More than the development, you will be spending more time in meetings.
3.The project will definitely require a team of developers because of the technical work that will be involved.
4.If you plan to target the consumers directly then you will need to address the user frequency usage challenge. A patient might upload their records but forget to update when they visit a clinic a few months later so the solution to avoid the friction is to connect with the clinic's patient portal via an api.
Hope this helps.
Thanks for your reply Nakkeeran. I plan to target the consumers, and the reason for that is because the healthcare system is just too broken to a centralised system where each facility will have to connect with using an api.
Concerning frequency of use, your assertion is correct and to address that concern, we are looking at a model where patients optionally won't have to upload the records themselves. All they have to do after visiting the hospital is to register the visit on that app. With that information, we will contact the facility and get them to upload to us for an "incentive".
The product consumer persona from my experience as a doctor are 1. Persons with chronic diseases
2. Parents.
I really envisage a future where patients themselves will take chat he of their records, and the way to do that is to have a third party cloud service where it os stored.
Good points covered here.
Clever for medical records? Totally a good idea. The best part is that it doesn't matter how many different teams have the same idea because it's all about execution and the moat is big.
Thanks for your reply @chaostheory.
Is the idea to store medical records (all too often locked-down in proprietary systems like those from Cerner, Epic, etc.), HL7 CCDA (or similar) extracts, or patient-focused medical data? The actual records are nearly unintelligible to a lay user.
Thanks FunctionFocus for your reply. I'll say the idea is like Dropbox, but for health records. The only difference is that we will collate the records from hospitals and upload them on behalf of the patients, so the patient can access and share anytime anywhere.
There is a lot of regulation in this space, you’d need to do serious research beforehand into the legalities of each territory you want to deploy to. You’d need to document all development and have many business processes in place and documented to ensure your process was controlled and audited. It’s probably not feasible for an individual or small team.
Thanks for your reply jf_. For now the target market is my home country Nigeria. I am in the healthcare system here and I understand the regulations required.
As per regulations, the law empowers patients access to their records and also to be able to share it with a third party. I think this is the most crucial factor.
The healthcare system in Nigeria is broken and inefficient. I think a service that collates and stores patients record will empower them to demand a more accountable and transparent service from care givers.
Well, if there’s little or no regulation then everything becomes much easier. You’re just looking at making a cloud based document storage system. From a technical point of view it’s rather straightforward, how you get customers to use it is the hard part. Do you have much development experience and are you working with a team?
Ya, its really a cloud based document storage system. We are a team of three persons. Two with python/django experience and the third with cyber security experience. What we really don't have is a front end specialist, but we want to use bootstrap and jQuery for the front end for now and just keep it simple.
As per getting customers, we plan to visit companies and institutions and request to give a health talk. We think people will have to understand what we are trying to do before they will signup.
I wish you luck! But do make sure you know the local regulations over how data must be handled and whether your system ends up being classified as any sort of medical device due to processing health data, the last thing you want is to be months in and realise that you’re non-compliant.
Thanks, I will
Hi Augustus,
I voted not sure. Why?
Well I need a lot more info about this before I could make a justified decision. Anything to do with medical records, brings up some serious security and privacy concerns to me. I would need those concerns addressed before being able to give it a yes or a no.
Thanks Colin for your reply. I understand why you will require more information. I am sure alot of persons may feel the same way as you are. If we decide to pursue this project, we will have to do alot of work to address the security and privacy concerns persons will have.