Drchrono (YC W11) Brings iPad-Based Medical Records To Doctors | Hacker News Reader

Drchrono (YC W11) Brings iPad-Based Medical Records To Doctors

blogs.forbes.com

54 pointsd8niel13 comments

Anyone have an idea as to how so many Y-Combinator companies get this kind of mind blowingly awesome press? is it just the brand recognition of being a YC company?

2 main cases I would guess:

1) Big press is now interested in YCombinator, and therefore reaches out independently to YCombinator companies

2) YCombinator staff+alum have press relationships from previous businesses/life, and therefore are able to provide a "warm" intro for the startup. If the startup has a good story, the press is receptive.

I can't speak to any other YC company, but I think drchrono certainly stands on its own merits here. Great looking product + hot industry + ongoing major news topic = mind blowingly awesome press.

So when someone overseas hacks thousands of medical records and posts them online (essentially a permanent archive because it will get saved and reuploaded over time) because of a guaranteed security hole somewhere among the numerous layers, how will that be undone? Who will go to prison? and will it change anything?

Some things should not be on the internet. Military secrets and medical files are two of them.

Can you imagine the nightmare if our nuclear silos were built today and powered by Windows and linked on the internet because it was more cost effective for the lowest bidder?

I'd love to buy my dad an iPad with this app. He's old but moderately tech savvy so I'm hoping that the UI will be simple enough for him to understand.

Congrats Drchrono team! Are are missed in NYC.

Major healthcare IT companies like Centricity and Epic already provide iPad apps for physicians to use. drchrono says their biggest competition is paper charts because everyone that already has an electronic records system would rather use an iPad app provided by the same vendor.

disclaimer: I work for Epic

Paper is drchrono's competition not because they can't go head to head with the major vendors, but because they're likely going after a completely different market. Epic targets the largest healthcare organizations (i.e. Kaiser Permanente) and thus our software is geared towards those specific use cases. EHRs have been in place for many many years in most organizations this size (100+ physicians). I would imagine that drchrono is instead targeting much smaller practices and facilities that still rely heavily on paper. This is a niche offering. Fortunately for them, a niche in healthcare IT is still very big business.

My problem with this is that the patient information is stored "in the cloud". As such, the terms of any agreements always favor the provider if the information ever escapes.

As opposed to the alternative (data stored locally on servers at the clinic)? I think the amount of buck-passing in that situation is actually a bigger problem. It's easy for the blame to be passed around from the vendor to the local IT staff, to the users, etc.

Actually, yes. HIPAA -- the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act -- is the watchword in medical recordkeeping, these days, and cloud storage is a major point of failure if you don't do it right. Neither DrChrono nor the linked article mention HIPAA, except to say they're compliant. They need to say how they're compliant, give details up front. I'd be more willing to take them seriously if they discussed the topic more like this:

The Nirvanix Cloud Storage Network meets the healthcare industry's need for secure archives. You can use policy-based replication to store data at multiple storage nodes that meet SAS 70 compliance. Nirvanix solutions encrypt data both in flight and at rest and enable you to instantly verify the integrity of your files. You also can make data securely available to selected users. We even seamlessly migrate data to new discs on standard refresh cycles, eliminating the complexities of long-term retention. With its secure long-term storage, the Nirvanix cloud will help you to comply with HIPAA Privacy and HIPAA Security Rules as well as other mandates for data privacy. (http://www.nirvanix.com/solutions/healthcare.aspx)

Here's a few other links that discuss the topic in a more informative manner:

http://www.hipaacompliancejournal.com/2009/05/cloud-storage-...

http://billkos.squarespace.com/hit-journal/2010/1/21/cloud-s...

http://hipaaaudit.com/2010/06/22/do-no-evil-says-google/

EDIT: Replaced Nirvanix quote with the correct paragraph. Oh, and I don't represent the company. Just picked 'em out of a search.

What most of the docs I've seen in the Bay Area do is keep everything on paper. And yeah, that reassures me relative to records kept in electronic form.

drchrono should hook up with Seattle design firm Artefact. They just won an award for design work for Seattle Children's Hospital creating a tablet interface for medical charts. More info at http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_future_of_hospital_...

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