Ask HN: Is anyone interested in trying to save healthcare? I've worked the last few years as a doctor in a sinking system. I'm trying to learn code in my spare time to build the apps needed to help change the course of things. I don't think it's something I can do on my own. Is anyone interested in helping? |
There are some startups in the health insurance space. What they seem to do is just make it easier to buy/cancel health insurance, all within an app. Some have been quite successful. Some are also trying to bundle in their own health care provision inside the app (like telehealth, virtual mental health, etc), so in a sense getting more people access to care.
It depends on what you think the goal of an app could be. If we can build an app that 1) makes people healthier or 2) actually replaces nurses/doctors/pharmacists, I do think you'll be better off with a better healthcare system.
I would like to see some more work along the lines of independent patient advocacy. It is tough, as a lay person, to know what treatments are available and effective (and other pros and cons). Also, navigating insurance, medicare, and other general healthcare related bureaucracy. Also, someone to answer simple health related questions would be nice.
I've been working on just that, a medical scribe. It sort of works, but there's quite a few things I still need to learn even before this could be an MVP. Namely privacy and encryption.
I love the idea of a 'patient navigator' – someone or something that explains things to the patient. PocketHealth is doing something when it comes to medical images, but it's not nearly enough!
You can look for a technical cofounder through y Combinator’s cofounder matching platform.
Learning how to code might not be the best use of your time if you want to build useful products.
I have broad categories of problems I want to tackle, but the first thing I want to work on is administrative burden for providers. LLMs can make a huge difference when it comes to writing notes/helping providers save time on things – quite a few startups working on it right now but no one has figured it out quite yet.