Dr. Richard Zane is one of the attending doctors when there is an emergency in their hospital. He wants an application that will be helpful in dealing with emergency cases. However, software developers’ and physicians’ visions of successful apps aren’t always necessarily aligned.

Dr. Zane is also a worker in UCHealth Colorado. He stated that some of the software engineers he encountered do not have enough knowledge of the workflow of physicians. Without an understanding of the workflow, apps needed by and useful for the doctors are underdeveloped.

As a means of helping software engineers learn about the process in the clinics and hospitals, Zane invited them to observe him on his workplace, but he’s keeping engineers away from patients’ records. Their observation includes the demonstration of apps on the computer that aid in his decision making.

But if there are cases that the records will be accessed, for example, the information is needed to develop an instrument for surgery, Zane will ask for the patient’s permission.

Because healthcare is a main service in the States, innovation is constantly expanding within the field. Software developers are finding it difficult when physicians become their customers because they need to do an observation to develop the software that they are asking.

Corporations such as Apple are consulting physicians regarding the inner workings of healthcare settings, so they can comprehend how their products will work in hospitals.

App Creators at the Heart of the Problem

A developer who worked at Google, Brandon Ballinger, observed physicians perform cardiac surgeries at the University of California. After his observation, he built his firm called Cardiogram. His product deals with finding the symptoms of a disease based on the information collected from his customers. This product is useful for both doctors and patients to learn more about the symptoms of cardiac arrest in different demographics.

According to a Greg Marcus, a heart specialist, Brandon offered to become a spectator regarding the medical procedures done in UCSF. He studied the workflow in the clinic with the help of the doctors’ proficiency. Marcus supports the idea of engineers that are willing to do their research in a specific field before working on their software.

A company named Epic Systems ordered its developers to study heart operation procedures in a hospital for them to develop tools that will be useful in life-and-death incidents. Physicians said that Epic Systems can still improve their products.

Researchers found out that some doctors complain about extended hours of working with their desktops in doing organizational works. They hope that there will be apps to help them to several duties. In addition, Zane wishes for a software that can show the physician’s system.

Software Developers in the Medical Field

RxRevu’s founding member, Carm Huntress, is following the methods he gained from Zane. This company from Denver serves as an aid to the doctors in deciding what prescription to give to their patients. The objective of the app they developed is to find out the interaction between the medicine and the patient’s body so that the physicians can discuss it more deeply with patients.

According to Huntress, while working with the physicians, he noted how stressed the doctors could get. The exhaustion from long working hours makes it challenging for the doctors to work with complicated apps on their computers. Physicians sometimes ignore alerts from computers because of extreme tiredness. Huntress aims to develop a simple software that can be advantageous to physicians. He wants to apply everything he learned from Zane.

Moreover, Huntress told that the decision of Zane to team up their doctors with RxRevu’s developers helped him develop a more efficient application because of his understanding of medical processes.