IdeaWell

Project ideas from Hacker News discussions.

ChatGPT Health

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

1. Privacy and Data Security Concerns

Widespread distrust of OpenAI handling health data, fearing leaks or misuse. "I really feel like no one should trust open ai with their health data." – zxor3. "no one should trust any EMR or organization with their health data, it'll all be leaked eventually." – sda2. "Yeah, gotta say I'm not enthusiastic about handing over any health data to OpenAI." – ZeroCool2u.

2. Frustrations with Doctors and Healthcare System

Frequent complaints of misdiagnoses, rushed visits, and access issues. "Some physicians are absolutely useless and sometimes worse than not receiving any treatment at all." – avgDev. "I had a 30+ year orthopedic surgeon confidently tell me my ACL wasn't torn." – AppleBananaPie. "most doctors - like most mechanics - are the worst debuggers in humankind." – whalesalad.

3. Positive AI Health Experiences

Anecdotes of ChatGPT aiding diagnoses or insights better than doctors. "ChatGPT was able to reference papers and do data analysis which was pretty amazing... more useful information than what my doctor eventually provided." – roger_. "ChatGPT figured out in 5 minutes the reason behind a pretty serious chronic problem that her very good doctors hadn't been able to figure out in 3 years." – qgin. "ChatGPT arguably saved my fathers life two weeks ago... accurately predicted... C Diff infection." – k2xl.

4. AI as Supplement, Not Replacement; Risks of Misuse

Views AI as useful tool for research/second opinions but warns of hallucinations, self-diagnosis harms. "This is not much different than a smarter WebMD... doctors are absolutely fallible and misdiagnose constantly." – mcast. "Rubber-ducking your symptoms for free... and then asking a doctor for their 2-minute opinion is IMHO the best way." – halapro. "This is absolutely going to kill people." – plasticeagle.

🚀 Project Ideas

Verifiable AI Health Auditor

Summary

  • Tool providing AI health advice with audit trails: step-by-step reasoning, source citations, confidence scores, and exportable diffs for doctors.
  • Core value: Mitigates hallucinations/misassumptions (paulgrimes1's ADHD issue), builds trust via transparency.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Skeptical users wary of AI overconfidence or doctor silos (observationist, noosphr)
Core Feature Chain-of-thought prompts, PubMed RAG, diff viewer for AI vs. user data discrepancies
Tech Stack LangChain for verifiable chains, Streamlit webapp, Pinecone for local vector DB
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Revenue-ready: One-time $20 license

Notes

  • Tackles "audit trail for verification" (observationist) and "cite sources" (mountainriver); prevents "WebMD on steroids" hypochondria.
  • Utility for pre-doctor validation; HN loves auditable AI, potential for medical debates.

Private Local Health AI Analyzer

Summary

  • On-device AI tool that analyzes user-uploaded health data (blood tests, wearables, photos) without cloud upload, providing insights, trends, and differential diagnoses with citations.
  • Core value: Empowers users with privacy-focused analysis to catch misdiagnoses or overlooked issues, as users like roger_ and k2xl did manually with ChatGPT.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Privacy-conscious individuals frustrated with doctor misdiagnoses and data leaks (e.g., zxor3, whalesalad)
Core Feature Local LLM inference on health data CSVs/images, generating reports with verifiable sources from PubMed
Tech Stack Ollama/Llama.cpp for local LLMs, Tauri for cross-platform desktop/mobile app, Plotly for visualizations
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Revenue-ready: Freemium ($5/mo for advanced models)

Notes

  • HN users distrust OpenAI with data ("no one should trust open ai with their health data" - zxor3) and want local solutions ("public open source models" - sallveburrpi).
  • High utility for self-research before doctor visits; sparks discussions on on-device AI limits.

Symptom Organizer for Doctor Visits

Summary

  • App that structures symptoms, history, test results into concise summaries and question lists for short appointments, with AI-generated hypotheses.
  • Core value: Maximizes 10-15 min doctor slots, reducing dismissals as in ghxst, fnoef, and SkyPuncher stories.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Patients facing rushed appointments and access delays (e.g., beaugunderson, dayvid)
Core Feature AI chat to input/refine symptoms, auto-generate printable/email summaries with prioritized questions
Tech Stack React Native for mobile, Grok/Claude API (opt-in local), PDF export via jsPDF
Difficulty Low
Monetization Revenue-ready: Subscription ($3/mo unlimited summaries)

Notes

  • Addresses "doctors glancing at chart for 2 minutes" (roger_) and prep needs ("rubber-ducking symptoms" - halapro); users would love efficiency hack.
  • Practical for global waits; fosters HN threads on AI-doctor workflows.

Self-Hosted Health Data Dashboard with AI

Summary

  • Open-source dashboard aggregating wearables/EMR exports, with local AI for trend analysis, risk prediction, and alerts.
  • Core value: Compartmentalized, encrypted personal health OS without trusting EMRs or AI corps (echoing sda2, usefulposter).

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Tech-savvy users wanting control over data like zsolt224's longevity tools or roger_'s CGM analysis
Core Feature Ingest Apple Health/CSV, local LLM for insights (e.g., "500 cal left?" - satvikpendem), deterministic risk calcs first
Tech Stack Docker self-host, Next.js UI, LocalAI/Ollama, SQLite/Postgres
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • Fills gap in "actionable insights" beyond Apple Health (roger_); quotes like "do your own research" (avgDev) show demand.
  • HN would discuss self-hosting, integrations; high utility for chronic tracking.

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