Tuesday, January 20, 2009

CumulusMedical.com

..Noble beginnings. We wanted to be a resource. A premier resource for our neighbors. For our brothers and sisters in the wired community. Mostly mental health and spiritual problems from the treehouse porch but that's an opportunity for the songwriters. For the smart guys to figure out.

How could we be relevant in a space where there are ... umm..how many eHealth sites? I mean really... what's the problem? Can we make a business out of the noble proposition.

Early on it was apparent that it was hard to get important information to the doctor about us. The Patient. Suppose you had an emergency... Doctors flying blind. Electronic information was the answer and we had a vision... do a retinal scan and all your pertinent/vital info was there on a handheld for the people that would save your life perhaps... BUT. There are disclosure issues. Manipulation of data repository issues and on and on...Laws and Regs and Security. This all seems like another Insurance Company Conspiracy (in CAPS). We will figure out how to make the vision work...someday.

So we talked with patients and Doctors... Real Patients with potentially serious conditions. We continue to talk with them. We continue to monitor them on the net. Like the guy who was told that he had 3 months to live. "Go home and get your affairs in order". That was over 10 years ago. Or the young Lady who was told, "get prepared to spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair".

Lots of research... Months of it and we are almost ready to go live and here's what we know: a little anxiety in a nervous world is going to be reduced by a site that is geared to the newly diagnosed, the care giver, the traveler and other who are worried that "something is wrong"... there will be a community . A social network. eMR and pHR capabilities and some eHub (buy the stuff you need conveniently here) functionality. All supported by the "need". Not exactly what the initial idead was, but an idea that will help people based on what they look for on the Net and what we have been told would be a "really big help".

BTW, while we were putting this together, I had my own scare. Perhaps in sympathy... who knows. I get it. Up close and very personal.. a little medication and a super doctor. The online community was hard to use. We will solve that.

Welcome to CumulusMedical.com