
Launch HN: ShiftDoc (YC S17) – On-demand healthcare staffing marketplace - pshah817
Hi HN! We&#x27;re Puja and Amit. We are the co-founders of ShiftDoc (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.shiftdoc.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.shiftdoc.com</a>). Our website is the first online marketplace that directly connects private medical practices with healthcare professionals looking for temporary work.<p>As doctors, we experienced first-hand the difficulties of finding coverage for time off or additional help at our private practice.  We would spend hours calling friends from our Rolodex or posting on Facebook, with limited success. The other option was to use a staffing agency, that charged between 40-100% fee for finding coverage.<p>We realized that this problem can be solved by bringing both sides of the market together on one platform and eliminating the middleman, so we created ShiftDoc. We use the Airbnb type model to help offices search for available healthcare professionals during their time of need.  Eventually, we plan to add automated credentialing and video calling for interviews so the process is seamless.<p>With the Affordable Care Act, aging population, and baby boomers, the number of patients has increased greatly, but there is a shortage of healthcare professionals.  This has led to a rise in temporary staffing and is expected to grow 6% annually, making it a $15B industry. Hospitals and some practices can spend up to $4000 on top of the daily salary for a temporary hire.  We want to significantly reduce those fees by making the entire process automatic, so facilities can hire more professionals to care for more patients.<p>We look forward to getting your feedback. We would love to discuss your thoughts on leveraging technology to improve healthcare. Thank you!
======
bobowzki
This is very common in Sweden. It's good for doctors but not so much for
patients, depending a bit on the speciality. This is because you lose some
quality of care when you see a different doctor each time. But of course a
fresh point of view can also sometimes be an advantage and bring new
knowledge.

That said, this is an inevitable development in healthcare and I welcome your
approach using software to automate the process.

Source I'm a doctor. I have done temp work through agencies such as this one.
And I'm a software developer.

~~~
popupeyecare
Thanks. We agree that the concept lends itself better to some specialties like
ER, Anesthesia etc. I would love to hear more about your experience if you
have a chance. - amit@shiftdoc.com

------
FLUX-YOU
Do you include training or overviews for software used between different
practices? Quick references on EMR choice, custom applications, and other
differences between practices would probably reduce friction when starting at
a new practice. You might even be able to include patient care summaries
automatically if you are sharing patients.

Getting people set up with domain credentials and doing standard prep work
were some of the other complaints I heard about, so good move there.

~~~
popupeyecare
Thats a great idea. In the future, we do plan to offer 'virtual training' to
get professionals familiar with the EMRs, etc before picking up a shift.
Currently, people tend to post what software they are familiar with and
offices usually hire professionals that have used that software or ask the
employee to come in early and get trained.

------
orb_yt
Love it. I have quite a few family/friends in the healthcare industry..i'll
have to ask them whether or not they would find something like this useful.

~~~
Rodd45
I'm gonna pass this as well to a couple of friends in the industry.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=15034118](https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=15034118)

------
avichal
Are you live everywhere in the US or only in certain cities?

~~~
popupeyecare
We are currently working with Optometrists in San Francisco, New York and
Chicago. We are onboarding other healthcare professions and hope to expand to
other major cities soon.

