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PSA: Thank you all for your kind words and outreach since yesterday's somewhat alarming post on my nonexistent platelet count + subsequent hospital visit. I've since been fully admitted into a room on the medical floor and am receiving active treatment to restabilize my platelets. (Suspected diagnosis for any med-heads out there is ITP, a sporadically occurring auto-immune disorder that appears quite treatable.)
I've always been the kind of person where, when left to my own devices in an uncomfortable or stressful condition, will look for things to do to improve the state of that thing.
Well. Yesterday I spent 30 hours at a New York City ER while waiting to be transferred to a room in the hospital. This was...not ideal. But one person's trash (ie: 30 hours in the ER) is an entrepreneur's treasure.
As it turns out, ERs are an incredibly fertile ground for new business ideation! So, in between beeps and buzzes and pricks and prods, I spent the day making lists of some potential problems that an entrepreneurially inclined person who wants to disrupt the patient experience at ERs might start with.
Here are some of them:
Lack of noise control - really hard to sleep with beeping, coughing, and patients screaming!
Massive overcrowding / No free space - so many beds and wheelchairs, no space to move around! no way to move your own ER bed
Inconsistency in eating patterns - no set meal schedule or way of self-serving food as a patient
Variability of patient mobility - wide-ranging and inconsistent abilities from patients; some can't even walk or roll over on their own
Irregular check-ins - highly inconsistent pattern of doctor and nurse check-ins
Lighting issues - too bright to sleep; impossible to dim lights completely
Hard to find help - no call buttons; if bed-bound, must yell out, cry emphatically, or (if you're that one guy, just start screaming indiscriminately) until help arrives
Test results arrive before doctors - test results arrive digitally without context from nurses or doctors; sometimes arbitrarily with hours in between!
Lack of clear expectations - you could be there for 3 hours or 30 hours, who knows? no status bar for visit time estimates or priority list for potential upstairs bedroom upgrades
When my friend Brittany came to visit me at the ER yesterday, we decided to kick around one of these problems "massive overcrowding / no free space" with an opportunity we saw when we looked up: The Ceiling.
What an ideal use case for a little no-code AI hacking...
The Prompt: What if ER patients could get instant access to snacks and convenience supplies, right from the comfort of their hospital beds?
The Solution: The Claw & Order - The first in-bed shopping arcade for ER patients
Inspired By: Sushi train conveyer belt meets your local commissary
Built With: Replit, with design conceptualization by ChatGPT
Access It At: https://claw-and-order.replit.app/
Select Mockups Below...
One of my favorite parts about pushing out micro-sites and splash pages on the regular is seeing the satisfaction of getting a proof of concept in no time at all.
Who knows, if this MuseKat thing doesn't work out, there's always hospital conveyer belts and ironic band-aids for adults for me to fall back on...
Maybe next time, I'll suffer through a day at the NYC DMV and then see what comes out on the other side...
if you want to know what 30 hours in the ER does to a person... the answer is...absurdist business prototypes powered by no-code AI tools. What if...getting access to snacks & supplies were as easy as grabbing something with a robot claw from a conveyor belt above your hospital bed? Introducing the Claw & Order: The First In-Bed Shopping Arcade for ER Patients https://claw-and-order.replit.app/
Includes snack and spa stashes for all of your ER Needs!
Flexible and accessible payment options!
Featuring special event mode like 2AM QVC shopping mode for the night owls, and I❤️NY special swag (*actual sushi train mode pending successful hire of a sushi chef who's willing to work with hospital-grade fish)
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