On Saturday, I went to Caltech to attend a talk on the “Opportunities in Healthcare IT.” It was a great panel that included former entrepreneurs, CIOs, and people on the regulations side. Here were the key takeaways.

Take Advantage of Open Data

The HHS is opening a slew up important data sources that innovative entrepreneurs can use to building incredibly useful mobile/web applications. We were working all last month with HHS eldercare, hospital, and medical center data to submit our application to the Health 2.0 competition. There’s a treasure trough of health information that needs to be mined, interpreted, then visualized for consumers.

Build A Team That Includes Regulations Expert

The key difference between building a startup in healthcare IT rather than other internet startups is the amount of risk involved. In order to succeed, you will need to be able to navigate the regulations maze and have to deal with a slew of acronyms e.g. ICD, HIPAA, SNOMED..etc. This means that having privacy and security experts on your team is paramount.

Home Healthcare and Hospice Are Ripe for Technological Innovation

In talking to some of the panelists there, it was clear that there is a big opportunity in eldercare services. There is a lot of attention around personal health records and electronic medical records, which leaves eldercare services unaddressed.