Taking care of our fluffy four legged friends can be as important as taking care of ourselves. EMRs (Electronic medical records) have become pervasive in Human care, but their focus is more to help bill us more effectively and keep us in the same "doctor network". Getting notes from one doctor to the next still involves printing buckets of paper versions (☮️🌲) and some poor person re-entering everything into a new EMR. Interoperability man, it's hard.
But what about our little floofers? They don't get the same treatment. I can't even go to the emergency vet and have my pupo's record show up. It's all a panic stricken me with a chocolate laiden doggo trying to tell a tired vet what crazily named prescriptions I give my cuddle-kins once every month.
Wouldn't it be nice if my pet's records were transferable anywhere? Easily accessible by a global network of Vets. Wouldn't it be nice if my wife could add her own notes so I didn't have to have them hastily scrawled on a sticky note for me to relay to the Doctor?
PetRx wants to create an interoperable, tamper-proof, master owned, open note EMR designed to create the best possible care for our four (or less) legged lovelies.
How does it work?
Pets are already getting chipped, we can use this as an identity. Could we add a cheap "signing" into the chip so theres actually a private key in there?
Scanning the pet (physical ownership) of the pet allows access. Helps with tracking strays, returning lost puppers, or emergency situations
Notifications sent to owner after a scan for awareness (or approval? not sure what PII might be in your pets emr...). Probably should include some information as to who and where, scans are traceable? How could a bad actor use my dog's emrs to compromise me? How do we defend that while allowing for emergencies?
Data stored in a secure Vault (self-soverign or otherwise, 3box is interesting as it allows apps to request access)
Insurance data (if applicable) is right in there so any vet can read it (Plugins!)
Tamper proofed data b/c why not
FHIR spec for interop
Adopting EHRs is expensive and card to make the switch all of a sudden. PetRx is an open standard, people can make fancy clients on top of it to sell subscriptions, scanners, chips.
Allows for vet records to follow dogs through rescues. Probably need to find a way to de-ident data from owner to owner...
Existing Work
PatientDirected.io - "Blockchained" EHRs for humans. Pretty similar idea, they also allow you to de-identify your own records and sell them for $$.
CurePet - EHRs for pets, still doesn't interop it seems.
Banfield (Petsmart's vet) - Huge network of vets all over the US. Works really well, but doesn't interop.
[ZIMS]() - EHR for zoos. Good at interoperability! Limited to zoos.
Distributed open standard now before anything's really been adopted wide scale means it should be pretty easy to get many adopters across many platforms. Blockchain and IPFS allows us to distribute data quickly and privately. Vets don't have an expensive cloud to help provide the great UX they deserve, showing them that it's cheap and easy to adopt slowly will help.
*** We can give the tech for free to rescues and then vets will need it and see the advantages of adoption pretty quickly 🎉
Assumptions
Honestly, designed for humans. Pets are an easier adoption path without HIPPA and HITECH to prove that the technology and standard works.
The Problem
Taking care of our fluffy four legged friends can be as important as taking care of ourselves. EMRs (Electronic medical records) have become pervasive in Human care, but their focus is more to help bill us more effectively and keep us in the same "doctor network". Getting notes from one doctor to the next still involves printing buckets of paper versions (☮️🌲) and some poor person re-entering everything into a new EMR. Interoperability man, it's hard.
But what about our little floofers? They don't get the same treatment. I can't even go to the emergency vet and have my pupo's record show up. It's all a panic stricken me with a chocolate laiden doggo trying to tell a tired vet what crazily named prescriptions I give my cuddle-kins once every month.
Wouldn't it be nice if my pet's records were transferable anywhere? Easily accessible by a global network of Vets. Wouldn't it be nice if my wife could add her own notes so I didn't have to have them hastily scrawled on a sticky note for me to relay to the Doctor?
PetRx wants to create an interoperable, tamper-proof, master owned, open note EMR designed to create the best possible care for our four (or less) legged lovelies.
How does it work?
Existing Work
PatientDirected.io - "Blockchained" EHRs for humans. Pretty similar idea, they also allow you to de-identify your own records and sell them for $$.
CurePet - EHRs for pets, still doesn't interop it seems.
Banfield (Petsmart's vet) - Huge network of vets all over the US. Works really well, but doesn't interop.
[ZIMS]() - EHR for zoos. Good at interoperability! Limited to zoos.
Good research article on the current state: https://pulse.embs.org/january-2017/electronic-health-records-veterinary-medicine/
Fit and Fitness
Distributed open standard now before anything's really been adopted wide scale means it should be pretty easy to get many adopters across many platforms. Blockchain and IPFS allows us to distribute data quickly and privately. Vets don't have an expensive cloud to help provide the great UX they deserve, showing them that it's cheap and easy to adopt slowly will help.
*** We can give the tech for free to rescues and then vets will need it and see the advantages of adoption pretty quickly 🎉
Assumptions