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by josephrmartinez 772 days ago
Here is a similar open source project: https://github.com/josephrmartinez/soapscribe

Just a starting point. But if you are interested in this space, fork away and build it into something useful!

My personal take is that the current tools on the market are too expensive. The cost should go way, way down. This should stay open source. Patients should have easy access to full audio recordings and transcriptions of their medical appointments. One can dream!

1 comments

Having worked in computing around medical facilities and providers, unfortunately, I believe this is just a pipe dream.

Companies that charge a lot for the software will buy up the smaller companies providing services until only a few are left. They'll bundle it up with an expensive price tag. Even more so, providers tend to have protection when they buy a piece of software used by a large number of other providers. They get to bandy about saying "industry standard". I promise you, you do not want to be in front of a medical malpractice jury saying "well we slapped these parts together that we downloaded online", it won't go well for you, even if that's what the big software service did just the same.

They can only buy up companies that are willing to sell. Principles still matter to some people.
Salesperson's Perspective

(initial introductions, "accidentally" stumbling on the owner's favorite bar/beach/...) Yeah, I'm doing my damndest to make the world a better place. There's all of these great tools for doctors, but they're struggling, getting hit by the crossfire of malpractice suits and interoperability difficulties.

(later meetings) We just landed <xyz llc>! They're world-class at helping patients with <abc>, but they didn't have the resources to survive in the current political climate. The founders were floundering pouring their own money in to try to keep their patients happy, but with our help the patients are better off and the founders can finally retire comfortably.

(much later) I see how much you care about your business and how it's really about the people you serve; that's why I got into it too. When it's finally time for you to sell, you definitely don't have to go with us, but please try to hand it off the right way to somebody who cares. Private equity vultures don't make anybody happy.

Fewer and fewer it feels like :(

The almighty dollar influences a lot of people.