Comments for Yourteledoctor Blog

Comment on Looking for a Rails Shop to Build an Alpha Version by Sylvain Carle

Sylvain Carle — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:57:13 +0000

Hum, that could be a great topic for my next barcamp presentation : “getting technology done, how to estimate, manage and ship!”…

Comment on Looking for a Rails Shop to Build an Alpha Version by Mehdi Akiki

Mehdi Akiki — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:48:40 +0000

Thanks for the advices Sylvain.
I would love to hear more from you about your experience on making a product happen.
What happens often is you often overestimate the time needed to get there as well as the problems that may ( and will?) occur before getting to your goal.
What about getting always reviewing the goal?

Comment on Looking for a Rails Shop to Build an Alpha Version by Sylvain Carle

Sylvain Carle — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:30:21 +0000

BTW, I don’t believe you can make a good prototype (not even the final product) for any significant business with less than 50-100k. In rare occurences maybe, but these are exceptions rather than the norm.

Comment on Looking for a Rails Shop to Build an Alpha Version by Sylvain Carle

Sylvain Carle — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:27:49 +0000

Here’s my advice : a good plan makes a good path towards a good product. The key combo at Praized for that is a Product Manager (Seb) with a clear vision of the product and the market and someone with lots of experience on making a project happen (me). Then the “construction” can be accomplished either completely in house or partially outsourced, but if your product is your company I would strongly advise against going with outside consultants for more than 30-40% of your workload, it’s in my experience a sure way towards disaster, either in the building phase or in production if you are lucky enough to get there…

And as you are writing, pessemistic planning is a much saner way to work schedules and budget, planning for worse case makes for great news if you end up being too pessimistic, while the opposite is bad.

Comment on Looking for a Rails Shop to Build an Alpha Version by admin

admin — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 22:02:36 +0000

Thanks for the reply Heri.
I knew where I was heading to, but you should read and understand what I am writing. When you contract someone and pay him by the hour, you can run into the problem of spending on spending more that what was expected. This is a comon problem in software anyways. Most projects go over budget because of lack of good planning and having optimistic previsions on what can be completed.
I want to work with a team and that we setup a budget from the beginning and decide of the features that can be built from day one. This way the developers will make the EFFORT to deliver rather than ask for money for whatever hours they supposedly worked.

Comment on Looking for a Rails Shop to Build an Alpha Version by Heri

Heri — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:31:00 +0000

i thought the alpha version was built a while ago? shouldn’t you ask yourself questions why $15.000 were spent and you only got one or 2 features “barely working” ?

I guess this boils down to one thing: do you really know where you are heading to?

Comment on Making YourTeleDoctor Global by Daniel

Daniel — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:10:13 +0000

I read similar article also named Making YourTeleDoctor Global, and it was completely different. Personally, I agree with you more, because this article makes a little bit more sense for me

Comment on Making YourTeleDoctor Global by Heri

Heri — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:32:13 +0000

i see a point in sylvain carle’s when he says you should launch the service locally first, or just for a selected group of patients/doctors, in order to get early feedback and test the concept.

also there are still a lot of people who go for their doctors just for the nice words, because they are stressed and need someone to sooth them.

anwyays, great post. I am also sure there are lots of great prospects in telemedecine, the landscape is pretty much void now, and there are lots of opportunities to grasp!

Comment on Making YourTeleDoctor Global by Mehdi Akiki

Mehdi Akiki — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 03:08:42 +0000

That’s true Sylvain,
Trust is the most important factor. It is implicite in each of the points mentionned above. This barrier of trust can be overcame with tools that allow patients to get to know their doctors while doctors having access to information about the patient as well. The information can be the CV of the given doctor as well as its past experience in the system and the comments of his own patients.
Building a system like this will allow for more transparency and trust. This will benefit the end user
(patient) and the doctor as well. It is a win/win situation.

Comment on Making YourTeleDoctor Global by Sylvain Carle

Sylvain Carle — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 23:35:59 +0000

I think you left out the most important factor : trust.

It’s hard to build, but I think that a global trust system for health professionals is something that needs to be built. And most probably a decentralized trust system, that would benifit all health services. Global might be a tall order to start with, I think you should start with a well defined local scope, state/provinicial or country level at firtst, trust is easier with smaller distances and existing trust networks.