Papa Johns earns over $1 billion in revenue from online pizza ordering

The Associated Press released that Papa Johns has just crossed the threshold of over a billion dollars in orders from their online ordering system (including text message orders). Last year, their online sales topped $400 million, and they project the annual revenue from online orders to skyrocket over the next couple of years, as more people become more comfortable with the process. An interesting part in the press release was the mention of a Papa Johns franchise location that was extremely busy, yet very quiet, because they were receiving very little phone calls, and a majority of their orders were processed online.

As I mentioned in a post about some of the similarities between SavvyDoc and Potbelly’s, the Internet is really making it easier for us to process regular tasks. The benefis is the ability to operate at your own pace, and ultimately make more informed decisions because of the transparency. Is it that painful to order a pizza over the phone? Most likely not, but the added convenience online provided to the customer is important, especially if it will cut down on errors. We at SavvyDoc are trying to make doctors appointment scheduling as easy as ordering that pizza online. Imagine if you have five children, who have tons of activities, programs, and schedules, and instead of calling the dermatologist, orthodontist, and pediatrician, you could manage all of that from the comfort of your home, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If it works for pizza, it will work for an industry where 1 out of 3 people have an inability to make a timely appointment.

Doctors, protect yourself from bad technology investments

It would be disingenuous of us at SavvyDoc, to champion the need for further adoption of health care IT and not understand that with any new technology there will be unscrupulous providers of bad technology. I recently came across a great resource for doctors who are having issues with their electronic medical record systems or are looking to implement a system. Doctors in peril is a non-profit organization that is looking to help protect doctors from bad IT investments. There is some useful information on current companies the organization is fighting legal battles against, but there is also a brief breakdown on how to protect your IT investment, which is VERY good. For those of us looking to implement IT solutions into health care these bad technologies or bad companies only slow the progress of a blossoming field.  Especially with SavvyDoc where we have created a solution particularly useful for smaller practices, which are at greater risk of these predatory selling practices, we want the buyer to make informed and smart decisions on IT solutions for their practice.

Putting Health Care IT into Perspective

For those looking for faster adoption of IT in health care, Aetna is taking a nice step forward with their new plan to electronically alert doctors to patient care needs. Using Aetna’s claims information on patients the health insurer will be able to inform a doctor if a patient is allergic to a medication recently prescribed or if a patient is due for special tests. For example a patient with diabetes needs an annual exam with an ophthalmologist, when the Aetna system realizes an annual exam has been missed it will alert the patients PCP so that an appointment can be arranged. This is a great system, and its good to see the insurance companies leading the way with regards to implementing health care IT. Admittedly the system is not perfect, alerts will be made through a special physician website but physicians will also need to be notified via phone, fax or e-mail but even as currently constructed this is helping physicians to run a more efficient practice.

One of the issues that has come up recently with implementing technology into health care is the unrealistic desire that systems like the one Aetna has created, electronic medical records, Google Health, or SavvyDoc need to be perfect technologies. This can range from questions of integrating into other systems or questioning the usefulness of technologies simply from each specialists perspective. Each of these issues and others need to be covered by new technologies but this will happen in time and will require a period of trial and error. As the medical field is one of perfectionism, and rightly so, there tends to be resistance or a wait and see attitude for new technology. But even the most dangerous drugs, have to be tested on humans at some point and I believe we have reached this threshold with health care IT. Waiting for the perfect technology is a lot like waiting for the proverbial magic bullet cancer drug. Additions to the framework of already useful technology will make for an awesomely powerful IT solution but they are the icing on the cake and should not be viewed as barriers to implementation. When IT is able to adapt seamlessly to various specialties or patient situations and fully integrate across electronic medical records, billing software, appointment software, personal patient records etc. then the health care IT space will truly be mature and we at SavvyDoc will need to find another cause in health care to champion.