The iPad will see you now: drchrono EHR on the iPad | Hacker News Reader

The iPad will see you now: drchrono EHR on the iPad

mashable.com

52 pointsSkeletor18 comments

The app's UI really needs some work-- lots of rounded rect buttons and text fields (i.e. lazy use of Interface Builder), bad alignment, all caps text, nonstandard icons and labels, UITabBar on the top rather than the bottom, etc.

This may seem trivial-- it has all the features, even if the corners are rough-- but having a good UI makes a big difference to the experience.

The UI has already been completely redesigned. The new version of the Drchrono EHR will be out within a week and it will look nothing like what you see now.

Is there an iOS application for patients? It would be awesome for me to walk into my doctor's office and be able to pull up an app. to have a data-driven discussion ...

That could be huge. When you have a conversation with your doctor about anything, they're dropping a ton of information on you, usually just in summary. If they could give you access to complete information in real time, it could save a lot of time, while also increasing accuracy later.

Think of it as a curated WebMD or such, where you only see information your physician has marked as relevant to your particular diagnosis.

My internist's hospital group uses Epic, and while I'm sure it cost a pretty penny to license the feature, you can download an iOS app to view your test results, request appointments, send a secure message to the doc, etc.

I could really see a downmarket version of this as valuable for the type of physician who isn't associated with a huge hospital group and can't afford and doesn't need anything like what you'd get from Epic, Cerner, or the like.

One fairly significant problem I see with an EHR running in iOS is that, unless I'm mistaken, the sandboxing effectively makes it impossible for 3rd party developers to extract patient data from the EHR. This limits the potential for additional services like realtime clinical decision support.

drchrono runs on the iPad and on the cloud backend of drchrono.com. So drchrono can and does integrate with other vendors and systems to share data and take actions. For instance we transmit billing data to insurance companies and order electronic prescriptions over the Surescripts network.

Cant you use it on Xoom considering it has a Web interface.

Are there other platforms that this will work on?

Also can you elaborate a little on HIPPA compliance measures that are being taken?

Before even experimenting with this for patient data, I'd be interested in answers to at least the following basic questions:

- what logging and auditing is in place for telling a physician (who is ultimately responsible to his/her patients for their data) who accessed and/or changed data?

- are routine logs provided to users?

- how are backups done, and where do backups of data live?

- who, if anyone, at "drchrono" and/or any server farms used has access to my patient's data and/or backups?

- what is the retention policy for data? How do I get rid of data if needed (drilled all the way down through backups)?

- regardless of any verbiage about "never sharing data with a third party", what policy does "drchrono" have around dealing with subpoenas for patient information?

- what special precautions, if any, are in place for additional privacy around mental health and drug dependence issues?

The mashable advertisement indicates "All the data storage is HIPAA-compliant, as well." Is it? I'm a little confused by the following (difficult to parse) fragment on the website:

"The environment at drchrono currently encompasses the highest level of security as well as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) security tenets that of the proposed regulations."

Perhaps someone from drchrono could let a potential user know if they actually claim "HIPAA compliance", and if so, reassure the user with details of how "compliance" was determined (ie via audit? - and who exactly is the "team of security experts" advertised?)

Less marketing-speak, more facts would be helpful.

I'd love to talk with you offline about drchrono to go through all of your issues in detail. You can email support@drchrono.com to get a 1-1 conversation.

For security and data issues the government Meaningful Use guidelines have very specific security and encryption standards we follow and are getting certified by a 3rd party government approved lab.

drchrono is a professional service for doctors and we only generate revenue by having doctors pay us for premium services (e-prescribing, medical billing, clinical realtime speech to text.) So we never sell any data (even anonymized data) to any 3rd party like some other companies do.

Why only 1-1 ? All of these questions seem reasonable and should be answered in your public materials.

All of these questions are answered in our privacy policy public pages. I could just tell people to RTFM, but doctors and potential customers often appreciate conversations that can address their specific concerns.

Oh, great! Mentioning that they are in TFM while inviting a conversation would have been useful for us on-lookers.

In general, I think that responding to a public request for information with an invitation to communicate privately raises concerns unless it also includes notice that the information is already available publicly (or soon will be made so.)

Do you imply that services that sell anonymyzed patient data are unprofessional?

Medicine has progressed because of sharing of information, and I dont see any harm in anonymyzed information being shared, as long as its a fair and open market.

Yes, companies that sell data about their doctors and patients are doing something dishonest in my view and we will never do it.

https://www.amia.org/files/workforthesecondaryuseofhealthdat... provides a good discussion about the subject.

Then what are your thoughts about http://www.practicefusion.com/pages/pr/practice-fusion-teams... ?

Your "taking this offline" is a big red warning flag.

You really need to address the questions here, otherwise it looks like you're hiding something...

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