This segues nicely into an idea that occurred to me the other day.
I was knocking around the idea of a website where you sign up with just an email and are issued a unique id, potentially with the ability to generate new ones on the fly. When you hook up with someone, you load an app on your phone or a website, and it generates a QR code. Each partner scans each others code and the website logs the encounter.
At some point, someone is going to get an STD/STI. When this happens, the infected parter can go to the website and with just a few clicks, you can send a notification to your recent (for some medical definition of recent), and they'll be notified to get themselves checked.
Now, the whole HIPAA compliance thing (or compliance in general, since the US isn't the only government affected here) would be a bitch and a half, and getting user adoption would be hard ("you use website.com? slut!"), but if it was safe and caught on, I could see it having a real effect on infection rates.
Some really common infections (chlamydia, gonorrhea) show no symptoms in a lot of cases, so just getting that easy notification could really help people identify that they have the disease, and so they could get quicker treatment.
I just wish I had the skill and finances to try it. Maybe some kid that wants to take a run at YC funding could use this as their idea?
I was knocking around the idea of a website where you sign up with just an email and are issued a unique id, potentially with the ability to generate new ones on the fly. When you hook up with someone, you load an app on your phone or a website, and it generates a QR code. Each partner scans each others code and the website logs the encounter.
At some point, someone is going to get an STD/STI. When this happens, the infected parter can go to the website and with just a few clicks, you can send a notification to your recent (for some medical definition of recent), and they'll be notified to get themselves checked.
Now, the whole HIPAA compliance thing (or compliance in general, since the US isn't the only government affected here) would be a bitch and a half, and getting user adoption would be hard ("you use website.com? slut!"), but if it was safe and caught on, I could see it having a real effect on infection rates.
Some really common infections (chlamydia, gonorrhea) show no symptoms in a lot of cases, so just getting that easy notification could really help people identify that they have the disease, and so they could get quicker treatment.
I just wish I had the skill and finances to try it. Maybe some kid that wants to take a run at YC funding could use this as their idea?