About Daobook

Built by a practitioner, for practitioners.

Daniel Kelly is a Chinese Medicine practitioner registered in Australia, a software developer, and the sole inventor of the term “herb tech.” Only one of those credentials is officially recognized by a regulator. He's at peace with this.

Daobook exists because of a specific kind of frustration: the kind that builds quietly over years of clinical practice while perfectly good thinking time disappears into handwriting formulas that then can't be connected to anything else, copy-pasting data between systems, and designing labels from scratch for every single patient.

After completing a Bachelor of Health Science in Traditional Chinese Medicine and spending years in clinic, Daniel went back to study software development. Not to leave practice, but because he had a theory.

The theory

Three disciplines. One slightly obsessive idea.

Software engineering

Has a principle called Don't Repeat Yourself: the idea that no piece of information should ever need to be entered twice. Daniel kept feeling resistance to the repetitive admin that came with every clinic day, designing labels by hand, re-entering data that already existed somewhere else, doing the same mechanical tasks between every patient. He started imagining a system that just… did all of that automatically.

Traditional Chinese Medicine

Has its own version of this philosophy. Pattern recognition, accumulated clinical history, the gradual refinement of a formula over successive consultations: TCM is a system built on not starting from scratch. Good practice is efficient practice. The formula evolves; the friction shouldn't.

Traditional kung fu

Which Daniel trains, is built on economy of motion. Every technique exists for a reason; anything unnecessary gets stripped away through repetition until only the essential movement remains. Good software works the same way. If a feature requires more effort than the problem it solves, it shouldn't exist.

He called the intersection of these three ideas “herb tech.” His colleagues thought this was funny. He built a software company anyway.

What that actually looks like

Consultation → prescription → label → stock. Without leaving the system.

Daobook is built on a single conviction: that a consultation should flow naturally into a prescription, which should flow naturally into a printed label and the stock it draws from, without you ever leaving the system, re-entering data, or breaking the clinical thread.

Every feature exists because a practitioner, specifically this one, needed it and couldn't find it anywhere else. The 500+ formula database came from the time it took to write formulas out by hand and the fact that once written, they couldn't be reused, searched, or connected to anything. The automated label printing came from designing the same label layout for every patient.

Nothing is automated just because it can be. Clinical decisions remain yours. Daobook handles the repetitive parts so you can focus on the parts that actually require thinking.

Built by someone who can't stop thinking about formulas.

Daniel practises less than he used to; Daobook became the full-time obsession. But the clinical thinking never switched off. He still reads formula literature for fun and built an entire software company partly because he couldn't stop thinking about how the prescribing workflow should feel.

This matters for one practical reason: when you contact Daobook support, you're talking to someone who genuinely understands what you're doing and why it matters. Not a helpdesk. Not a script. Someone who will understand immediately if you say “the granule calculation feels off for this preparation” and know exactly what you mean.

The clinical thinking never stopped. It just changed what it was building.

In the United States

Started in Australia, with a US service of its own.

Daobook began in Chinese medicine clinics in Australia, where practitioners run their bookings, notes, prescriptions, labels and dispensaries on it.

The US edition runs on its own servers in the United States, kept apart from the service in Australia, and every clinic accepts a HIPAA business associate agreement when it signs up. The same team builds it and answers your support emails.

Principles

Three things that guide every decision

Don't repeat yourself.

If you've entered something once, you shouldn't need to enter it again. Ever.

Flow over friction.

Every click that isn't necessary is a small interruption to clinical thinking. We take those seriously.

Practitioner first, always.

Daobook will never automate a clinical decision. The software handles the administration. The medicine is yours.

In their words

Built alongside practitioners

In my experience this has been the most comprehensive and user friendly electronic practice management system tailored specifically for Chinese Medicine… The best thing is that Daniel and his team are always there to listen, and are maximally devoted to meet our needs as practitioners.

Danijela Jakic

Chinese Medicine Practitioner

Right on Point, Australia

Daniel Kelly

Founder and developer, Daobook

BHSc (Traditional Chinese Medicine) Diploma of Information Technology Registered Chinese medicine practitioner (Australia) Melbourne, Australia

Daobook is a product of Emba Digital Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia

Want to see herb tech in action?

Watch Daniel walk through the workflow in short demo videos, covering the features that matter most to a TCM practice, from prescription building to inventory.

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