We are currently building out the MVP: a Facebook Messenger chatbot for personal health records. Like how the Common Application both cuts out redundancy and empowers high school seniors to have control over and have easy access to their personal information for college applications, our product offers the same value propositions to both patients and doctors. By seamlessly integrating with doctors’ and patients’ existing workflows, our MVP will cut costs and time for doctors as well as empower patients to have control over and easy access to their medical records.
Our idea leverages the spread and accessibility of the internet to enable seamless communication between clinics and their patients. First, it saves a patient effort and time in the waiting room by auto-filling the patient’s personal and medical information across visits, Second, it gives doctors nurses a way to prepare better for the patient’s visit by giving them the necessary information ahead of time, and third, and most importantly, it gives patients access to their full history of medical records and responses with the click of a button.
Long term, we want to change how medical records are stored and accessed, putting the agency in the hands of the patients. Currently, access to personal health and immunization records are distributed and controlled by hospital systems and private physicians. While it is imperative for doctors to have access to this information, it is also in the interest of the patient to easily have access to their medical records. Additionally, future versions will include translation, as language can prevent immigrants from getting medical help.
Much later, we hope to give patients the ability to opt-in to and be connected with virtual and physical communities, called “motivation groups,” for health conditions (e.g. stage 4 terminal cancer, mental health, etc.).
Facebook Messenger is the ideal platform to launch our product because sharing contact, identification, age, gender, and marital status information with your doctor is redundant and users typically already share this information publicly on Facebook.
Communication through the internet has allowed businesses and ideas to advance. However, the field of medicine and healthcare services remains largely traditional, with reliance on paper forms and physical records of the patient’s history.
Previously, patients filled out the same basic information in every doctor’s (whether it be a general practitioner, dermatologist, or orthopedic surgeon) waiting room right before an appointment. This is frustrating for the patient and wastes time. At the same time, current Electronic Medical Records cause doctors to sink precious time during the physical examination and conversation into typing, which inhibits empathy. Our app gives the patient the ability to document their symptoms and will both provide the information to the doctor in both a legible manner and integrate into the EMR system. This is more efficient, builds empathy, and provides the patient with the opportunity to record their point of view.
Currently, physicians and nurses transcribe patients’ pain and symptoms. According to our medical advisors, a common medical entry takes the form: “The patient complains of dizziness and headache. But from looking at the patient’s history and CT scan, I am unclear as to why the patient continues to have these symptoms.” This anecdote exemplifies how the patient’s voice, which is incredibly important, is lost in translation. However, our product offers patients a way to give their perspective in detail. We are building a new way for patients to communicate with the intricate system of doctors, by efficiently sharing their personal medical and contact information. By being conversational in nature, our MVP generates more empathy than online forms.
Our potential users are patients and doctors who need to share and receive personal, health, and contact information. We have segmented the doctor persona into a general practitioner and specialist. Through our research speaking with physicians in multiple types of practices and comparing forms between specialties, we have found the following differences that require different versions of our core product.
General practitioners are responsible for understanding the patient’s holistic health and thus require extensive social and medical history. For example, a form at a general practitioner’s office asks about any past surgeries, previous medications, and information from specialists. On the other hand, forms at specialists’ offices ask for a brief overview of the patient’s general medical history and often focus on specific parts of the body or medical problem. For example, a dermatology office typically asks: Details of last dermatology visit, Personal and Family Dermatology history (cancers, diseases of the skin), and use of sunscreen.
Finally, the scope of this product is international. Users speaking many languages can use our app abroad.
I grew up in India, and I have observed the challenges associated with lack of digitized data of the patient’s medical and personal information first hand. My uncle, being a renowned dermatologist in my hometown, has often complained about not having access to the patient’s responses to crucial questions prior to or after a visit. In the past, he has pointed out to me the printing and transcribing costs of medical forms, making paper records difficult to handle and use. This poses a scalability challenge for any small practice or clinic. Moreover, as a repeat patient at his clinic, I’ve found the process of filling out the same form on every visit tedious and confusing.
Absolutely, we will continue on the project with whatever resources we’re able to gather free of cost. We recognize that without funding we may be limited by budget constraints and may have difficulty developing our product to the point where it is marketable. Funding will be imperative to build out and host the security functionality we promise to our users and to integrate with existing EMR systems. Additionally, we find that being a part of the MVP accelerator not only aligns with our values and motivation but also offers resources (such as mentoring and branding) and credibility that will guide us through the complex and regulated space of healthcare and give us the impetus to apply the power of technology to it.
Why did you pick this idea? Do you have domain expertise? How do you know people need what you’re building? *
As two engineers studying Computer Science at Princeton, both founders have strong backgrounds in building technical products, experience in designing user-centric products as PMs at Microsoft, and scaling an idea from 0 to 100 in founding previous startups. Additionally, the founding team has access to a diverse set of physicians who are on their advisory board.
Ayushi’s parents are both general physicians and thus she is able to tap into her easily accessible personal network. Additionally, she has startup and app-building experience, shown through co-founding WellPower (wellpower.tech), an Uber for clean water in east africa.
Khyati has development experience with databases, and building websites that collect, store and manage data. Last fall, she founded a student startup with over 1000 student users (shut down currently due to COVID closures).
Through personal interactions with doctors and patients, as well as the experience of being a patient, we know that what we’re building is a simple solution to a long-standing and prevalent problem.
Describe the approach the team will take to develop the Minimum Viable Product throughout the summer. This includes, but not limited to:
Our competitors are large EMR systems such as Epic, ChartLogic, MyChart, Fusion, NextGen, and more. However, we plan on eventually integrating with these competitors. No direct competitors exist in the Facebook Messenger chat-bot/personal health records space.
Since we will be using Facebook Messenger as our core platform for messaging and communication, users enrollment will not be an issue. Our plan of attack is getting clinics to adopt our service and allow patients to fill out forms via our service. With the addition of each clinic, we anticipate an addition of 1000 users. Facebook gives us increased access and reach to users. First 2 week development milestone: Roll out the preliminary chat bot, beta test version 1.Gather feedback from clinics and patients and set guidelines for future refinements.
Tech stack you plan to use (Cloud services, APIs, mobile platforms, languages, etc) Messenger API for messaging and quick data collection. Google Cloud for database storage (if clinic requests data storage service). Languages- Javascript, SQL, HTML. React.js with python for separate website creation (later steps)
Link to simple sketches (can be as simple as paper and pencil) of your product or idea [Add flow doc link]
Our MVP plan can be found at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IJ9PEHwxP06PIgmB0SJI0gAje42bicQvSkpqjpQnu1U/edit?usp=sharing
[Perhaps a link describing a messenger bot]
Links to mockups, prototypes, pitches.
There are no technical barriers to entry for this solution. However, one challenge we anticipate is the building of psychological trusts with our patients. We understand that certain patients might be skeptical of sharing their data via a social media tool like messenger. While we will ensure data privacy and full consent for data sharing, we understand that concerns might be raised by clinics and/or patients. To combat this challenge, we plan on being 100% transparent and show how our privacy settings are more rigorous than customizable than traditional Facebook privacy settings. For example, updating one’s medical data will not “share” to a “feed” that their “friends” can view. Since patients have control over their data, we always give patients the ability to withdraw from the program at any time and we will promptly remove their data. We plan on following strict privacy and security protocols.
The current times present a unique opportunity for the co-founders to build from home, and save time on commute and other activities. The co-founders already contributed a lot of time and effort into building the solution, and we want the work to have real visibility, impact and adoption. Khyati will be starting remote work in the middle of the summer and Ayushi will be starting remote work at the end of the summer. We are confident that we will be able to pursue a 30 hour/week commitment despite future job commitments.
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