The mish-mash of regulatory regimes and insurance industries that change state-by-state, as well as practice-specific workflows that are every bit as unique as any business logic developed for one-off companies who evolve without any unifying or centralized force to standardize procedures, apart from compliance requirement, but those are not prescriptive in regards to the content specifics. If nothing else, just the combinations of integrations necessary for radiological imagery, insurance and patient forms, billing, patient services, communications, office admin, marketing/outreach, etc., make a lot of small healthcare offices some of the most unique businesses I have encountered in my ~9-years of freelancing as an I.T. consultant.
One restaurant has much the same needs and day-to-day procedures as another, even if they serve different types of food at a different price point to a different target market in a different part of the country. Healthcare is not nearly so uniform, and to the extent there are common elements to their processes, they are elements that have long since become standard features in every ePHI management system. But even then, the task of adapting those features to an individual doctor's workflow is nowhere near as straightforward as setting up a POS or inventory management system.
Then there is the unique nature of the data itself. It doesn't just store SKUs of mutable entities with well defined attributes that support pattern-matching, data verification, and formatting rules. It stores patients, each with unique histories, conditions, diagnoses, prognoses with instructions, contraindications, supporting documents, scheduling, billing options, and the documentation of each discrete visit or encounter. Every doctor will have their own approach to all of these aspects that should comply with applicable laws and standards, but who are otherwise empowered to construct their own policies and procedures, especially if they are focused on a specialty or niche.
TLDR; I expect the idiosyncrasies and demands in ePHI management are more diverse and uniquely challenging than one might think.
One restaurant has much the same needs and day-to-day procedures as another, even if they serve different types of food at a different price point to a different target market in a different part of the country. Healthcare is not nearly so uniform, and to the extent there are common elements to their processes, they are elements that have long since become standard features in every ePHI management system. But even then, the task of adapting those features to an individual doctor's workflow is nowhere near as straightforward as setting up a POS or inventory management system.
Then there is the unique nature of the data itself. It doesn't just store SKUs of mutable entities with well defined attributes that support pattern-matching, data verification, and formatting rules. It stores patients, each with unique histories, conditions, diagnoses, prognoses with instructions, contraindications, supporting documents, scheduling, billing options, and the documentation of each discrete visit or encounter. Every doctor will have their own approach to all of these aspects that should comply with applicable laws and standards, but who are otherwise empowered to construct their own policies and procedures, especially if they are focused on a specialty or niche.
TLDR; I expect the idiosyncrasies and demands in ePHI management are more diverse and uniquely challenging than one might think.