On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 13:52, Greg Markey wrote:
> Like Liz we swapped from MD2 to Promed/Medibase about 2 years ago.   At
> the moment we use Pracsoft 2 with it.    Works for us and we have
> absolutely no bother.    I'm not certain about the support now because
> we haven't needed to use it for a long time, but it has been excellent
> in the past.   We would be very unwilling to change.   Greg M (lurker
> and ignoramus)

Same here - we swapped to Medibase too, some 2 years ago. 
Because it uses Interbase (or FIrebird) and has no restrictions in data format 
(all open) it was very easy to enhance - first I wrote a web interface that 
allowed our locums at the hospital controlled access to some data that was 
essential for A&E work & emergency admissions, then a INR module (using 
wxPython), then a Pathology result browser (because we all agreed the built 
in one sucked), and then it gradually mutated so that currently I can access 
it both via the old Medibase program as well as via the gnumed interface and 
use all gnumed extensions with it too. 

Since it changed hands (now Promed) we did not renew the contract because it 
would have explicitly forbidden such extension work, while Richard King (the 
original developer and owner) not only tolerated it but also helped me 
generously with advice whenever I asked.

Downsides
The program has few bells and whistles, the letter writer module is not 
particularly refined, repeat scripts were needlessly cumbersome, and generic 
prescribing was poorly and only partially supported

Upsides
Server replication works without any additional costs
Server runs just fine on Linux
Open data format, easy to export / import data
Hot backups possible at any time
Effortless updates at any time, can be automatized / scripted
In the two years we had only one single software crash with only the last 
(incomplete) progress note lost, but no other losses of data nor any data 
corruption

Summary: a basic medical software package that runs robust and reliable and is 
very easy to administer and maintain. I has many short term locums in the 
meantime and none had problems with it (very short learning phase), but some 
didn't like it, some did.
 
Lacks some bells and whistles and refinement esp. re ergonomics, but appears 
to be rather responsive to customer wishes (don't even know whether my 
"downsides" still apply to the current version).
Import from MDW was no problem - ran fully automatic in one evening; only 
things that failed during import were some esoteric scripts (not existing in 
MIMS but in AZ-DEX, in that case the program imported name etc. but couldn't 
cross reference the drugs with the MIMS database it uses), letter templates 
(all letters imported just fine), and "recipes".

Horst
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