> As far as I can tell, there's no economic incentive for health care systems to undergo these transformations willingly
Yes. Thing is, say you have shitty software and see 20 patients in one day. Say you have fantastic software - you'll probably still only see 20 patients a day. The cost of upgrading is usually not justified if it doesn't hit the bottom line.
I'm trying to tackle this by making a system where improving it isn't a huge risk, or cost. For example, it has an extensible user interface - imagine something like atom text editor, or even browser extensions. Say you look at the immunization screen all day, and hate it. Find / build a small extension to arange it how you want, without changing any of the back-end system, and then share it to a registry for other people in your situation. Easy win.
I'm actually designing this system within the context of primary care in New Zealand. We have a socialized healthcare system, which is honestly very effective. Everybody pays for it via tax, and resources are evenly distributed. We even bulk purchase generic drugs for the entire country.
There isn't so much of an evil incentive to ensure all their 'customers' stay sick, but instead funding is a bit hard to come by. Funding happens regionally, and building national healthcare software systems is a huge task nobody but the government is willing to try. The market is so small (population of 4mill) that vendors can usually make more money elsewhere - so getting NZ tailored solutions is rare.
This is why I think the opportunity is in making a crowdsourced system, as opposed to a 'product' to sell.
Yes. Thing is, say you have shitty software and see 20 patients in one day. Say you have fantastic software - you'll probably still only see 20 patients a day. The cost of upgrading is usually not justified if it doesn't hit the bottom line.
I'm trying to tackle this by making a system where improving it isn't a huge risk, or cost. For example, it has an extensible user interface - imagine something like atom text editor, or even browser extensions. Say you look at the immunization screen all day, and hate it. Find / build a small extension to arange it how you want, without changing any of the back-end system, and then share it to a registry for other people in your situation. Easy win.
I'm actually designing this system within the context of primary care in New Zealand. We have a socialized healthcare system, which is honestly very effective. Everybody pays for it via tax, and resources are evenly distributed. We even bulk purchase generic drugs for the entire country.
There isn't so much of an evil incentive to ensure all their 'customers' stay sick, but instead funding is a bit hard to come by. Funding happens regionally, and building national healthcare software systems is a huge task nobody but the government is willing to try. The market is so small (population of 4mill) that vendors can usually make more money elsewhere - so getting NZ tailored solutions is rare.
This is why I think the opportunity is in making a crowdsourced system, as opposed to a 'product' to sell.