This post was originally featured on HIStalk.

Aereo, the startup that’s looking to disintermediate content providers from cable providers, is making waves, lighting fires, and prompting competitive responses from the incumbents. I love it.

How does Aereo work? They pickup ambient signals from the content providers in the air, convert to digital, and republish the content digitally on the Internet. Aereo is effectively undermining the cable providers by delivering content on the infrastructure of ISPs at a fraction of the cost of legacy cable networks and technologies.

From a technical perspective, there’s nothing the content or cable providers can do about it. Their solution is ingenious because it’s unstoppable. I hope they have a superb legal team to battle the impending litigation from the cable companies. Threats will draw lawsuits.

ABC felt compelled to respond to Aereo. They are going to live stream the raw ABC feed to iOS users who already have a cable subscription. The TV industry has been notoriously difficult to crack, and Aereo is among the first to successfully expose a crevice. Aereo is for real: they solicited a non-litigious response from an incumbent. That is the ultimate sign of legitimacy.

The hospital EHR industry is awfully similar to the cable industry. Entrenched players are using ancient and outrageously expensive technologies and dubious business practices to try to maintain relevancy by attempting to limit competition and innovation.

Please leave some comments if you know of any promising companies that are asymmetrically disrupting the hospital EHR industry.