markolschesky

I don't think it's about entitlement.

Twilio, either formally or informally, sent me a t-shirt twice when I found a bug. For me as a programmer, a bug on the 3rd party partner side generally means I spent some amount of my time figuring out that the bug wasn't something I was generating, but rather my vendor. Programmer time has a pretty real value to it, which no one likes wasting.

When I reported the bug and the support person offered to send me a t-shirt, I forgot about the time I spent on the bug and went "Neat! A t-shirt!". Now, when I look at the t-shirt, I couldn't tell you the specifics on the troubleshooting or how it ruined my afternoon 10 months ago. But, I can tell you that it felt like the vendor actually responded to my concerns. Some vendors haven't, and then I do the natural thing and spew vitriol about them across the internet and to my colleagues.

If I didn't like a vendor and they were replaceable, the second that I hit a bug that I felt the need to report, I would just not use that vendor anymore. Anyone who files a bug report has some amount of loyalty to a company that is not worth upsetting.

Pretty neat usage of a Creative Commons license for something that's outside the realm of software. It doesn't hurt that the kickstarter perks involve tasty salami.

Remember how the original PC version always crashed at the chocobo races if you tried running it on Windows XP? I remember being so bummed about that until someone released a patch for it on the internet. What did we do before automatic game patches?

I remember when I worked for a company that made hospital computer software. They were on top of the industry and growing, yet at one point totally geeked out about the fact that their software was going to appear on a show like Gray's Anatomy. Hollywood is the greatest.

I like it!

Is there anyway that when you pass the user from Corral to Google Maps that you can pass their location using a discrete address vs. Lat/Lng coordinates? Sometimes I forget what I was googling directions to awhile later and I'd prefer the to/from vs. the lat long.

Typically customers handle this through some type of waiver system. Generally at the initial visit in an organization a patient signs a ton of releases that state that the parent organization allowed to share patient information as needed through the course of treatment. Most people want to share their information, but there are systems in place to restrict access as needed by law/best practices. Patients can opt out of data, and some data sharing systems support this through various technical choke points. If you were a nurse at one organization, you may not want people snooping through your medical records at another medical organization. The Direct Protocol supports this through pseudo-anonymity of accounts.

This is helpful:

http://www.quora.com/Rock-Health/Whats-it-like-at-Rock-Healt...

We moved from Wisconsin to be a part of the V4 class, and it was amazing. To be surrounded by great business and technical minds who all give a damn about trying to make healthcare a bit better sustainably is really cool. I'd recommend it.

None of the above, IMHO.

In San Francisco, Kaiser could electronically share patient data with every other system running Epic with very little technical work and price. We're talking hours of work here. That would let them share data with UCSF, PCMH and every other Epic site.

They don't. Why not? It's because sharing patient data makes it easy to poach patients, and that's bad for business. There are similar situations in other cities too.

I don't blame them because the government hasn't made data exchange required yet. It's coming, with some of the requirements for Meaningful Use Stage 2 & 3 and the work done by the S&I framework. APIs will help too, because HL7 is confusing to newcomers and costs money. Vendors could make this easier too, but it's not like Epic or Cerner could compel anyone to share patient data.

I have a more in depth answer about this topic here: http://www.quora.com/Electronic-Health-and-Medical-Records/W...

If you don't believe in easy eligibility integration yet, prepare for the magic show.