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Kenny Ning's avatar

I do agree that healthcare industry incentives are super backward and the way that contracts are rewarded is inefficient and borderline corrupt, but I do flinch whenever I read a story about a lone developer building their own version of a public utility. It gives me flashbacks to when every data scientist was publishing their own covid dashboard last year. It sounds like in this particular case, the dev did reach out to the state gov which is a good start but the cynic in me does wonder whether building a new layer on top of a broken system doesn't open up more confusion in the future. https://xkcd.com/927/

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Kenny Fraser's avatar

This is a great piece Vicki. Despite the apparent different incentives, the system in the UK works in a very similar way. In fairness, vaccine appointments have been handled reasonably well. But in general the same problems apply. Difference here is that a lone individual would never be allowed to launch a system in the way Olivia did. It would be stamped and never see the light of day. (Full disclosure: I used to be a consulting partner in a big 4 firm - lots of powerpoint and bullshit in my own cv.)

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