As the VP of a Healthcare Software company (Amrita Technologies - www.amritatech.com), I am often called upon to visit various hospitals and figure out ways to make them adopt the next frontier in healthcare Technology. The traditional B2B software solutions are fast being questioned in the context of the user base's growing awaremenss of b2c technologies.
Tabletization and Mobile Apps - big buzz words a few years ago, are now commonplace in an advanced healthcare information system. Everybody talks about it, everybody wants it, but the key is - Is everybody or infact anybody using these at all? And to what extent?
I was touring several of our Client hospitals last month, and it struck me that people love their smart phone apps only if they have to interact with them for a few minutes a day. But the moment it become "work" - let's say a mobile EMR where you continuously monitor and access patient data, mobile loses some of its charm. Tablets are even more of a resistor - reading books - sure, reading patient notes - maybe not so good.
The key to understanding technology adoption is not just the ability to showcase applications and data across various devices or platforms, but the prediliction of the user to use or appreciate the type and quantity of information being presented via these devices.
At Amrita, we are focused on not just creating great healthcare technology, but in creating real world technology that will actually be adopted and used. It is not an easy cycle - creating solid products that are scalable, work seamlessly is good - but sometimes not flashy enough in this constantly hungry for more marketplace. Regardless, we firmly believe that the foundation should be strong enough to uphold the key pillars of our technology - Reliability, Scalability, and Adoptability.
My advice to budding entrepreneurs in Technology - Do what you firmly believe in, Flexibility is all about change, but not just change for the sake of change. In the words of J. Krishnamurthy “Do not repeat after me words that you do not understand. Do not merely put on a mask of my ideas, for it will be an illusion and you will thereby deceive yourself.”
Happy Reading......
Sumeet Bahl
Vice President Global Strategy
Amrita Technologies
As a fellow traveler on the same space I share the challenge too. The question may as how to grip the users' mindshare from among a wide choice the gadgets and their content offer the user. I've seen many a ''user'' carrying two communication devices in their pockets these days - one for work and the other for ''personal''.
ReplyDeleteA similar dilemma presents itself as a challenge of sorts for the Marketer. Emails. The divide between the so called personal emails and yes, Spam.
While it is nearly impossible to gauge what or how the reader selects to open or simply delete when s/he decides on checking mail! Even more challenging is how the email provider algorithms keeps changing trying to actually ''hack'' the readers' habits!
Attitudes of people towards Work may be the issue here. Unspooling the epoch making events in the usability of information technology it is now all too common belief that the discovery of the Mouse at Xerox and the entry of Apple with desktop icons are the two hacks the world embraced hand in glove and still continues to.
Perhaps Convenience is the key here. Perhaps the clinicians may feel bored to see ''work related'' stuff on a device classified ''personal''. Perhaps they may feel ''followed'' even as they leave their workplaces carrying their handhelds home.
The subtler challenge might be as to, borrowing an old IT slang, how to be more ''intuitive'' to the user!
The challenge finally may be on:
Do we Localize the mindshare? Or
Do we tantalize without result?
So eventually the larger picture (read challenge) behind these might be how to play the Mindgame in a win-win mode.