I have been toying around the edges of Gnumed, but uneasy about
committing a lot of effort, because progress appears to be stalled at
present. Also I am still climbing the long learning curve to be able to
contribute. It is probably the nearest to a viable FOSS app around, and
could form the core of further development.
Having studied the characteristics of "successful open source" on Google
it seems that you need something tangible to gather a core of volunteer
developers around.
However the big problems with Gnumed appear to me to be lack of coherent
up front requirements analysis, and the sheer technical feasibility of a
full medical software suite. In my view a medical app would have to be
able to deliver waiting room management/scheduling and a financial
package with billing as well as the clinical side. Of all the FOSS
projects studied on Google, requirements were implicit - though not
actually canvassed, the developer had a clear idea what he wanted.
I dont think this is the case with Gnumed and needs more work
The other aspect of feasibility is the requirement for ongoing
maintenance of data in prescribing, billing, vaccinations, travel etc.
This would require a major effort and I dont think could be done on a
voluntary basis - maybe this would be the basis for a commercial model,
as well as technical support
OTOH the cost of all the Windows based infrastructure should give a leg
up to any commercial competitor based on Linux and FOSS.
What do list members see as the requirements for a medical app in Australia?
Richard
David Guest wrote:
Ian Haywood wrote:
David Guest wrote:
It was
a very simple package. It recorded notes, wrote scripts and could import
and export text and binary data. It allowed others direct access to its
database. It's simple structure,
David, I don't know if you are one of the few who can dream at will,
Yep, pretty much, sometimes recurrently. I particularly like the one
where you become Professor of General Practice at Melbourne Uni and a
coterie of doctors and programmers committed to the promise of open
source in health forms and becomes a world centre for this activity.
but if you are, can you dream a little more around this concept.
IOW, what are the *bare minimum* features of an EHR that will get it taken
seriously?
For my own part, I have been using MDW2 for 4 months. I use notes, scripts,
letters, path/radiol requests,
path results (PIT only), and that's it.
I think we agree on the basics, Ian. It's keyboard, ins and outs and a
scripts database.
I use immunisations too in accordance with practice policy but IMHO it's worse
than useless (90% of our
vaccinations are catch-up) I once fired up the Travel module: must have taken
the programmer all of 5 minutes,
and s/he must have been drunk,
I had a bit of time over the Xmas break, and did the Ruby on Rails
tutorial (dead easy Windows tute at onlamp) and then started on the Ajax
on Rails. The upshot of all this is that we will have to rethink about
the way we handle web data and interactions and hence all medical
communications. I now know what you, Tim and Horst were referring to
earlier. Unfortunately only a few others do.
It was at that point that I woke up
so I never found out whether the company accepted those modules and
devised a mutually acceptable system for licensing them.
This is difficult. In general the following are true of the IT world:
- people won't make free contributions to someone else's proprietary product.
Argus is a good demonstration here.
- you can't run a FOSS outfit where your product is based on a proprietary
core. This is why GNOME exists, for example.
If the hypothetical company wants a serious community around it, it needs to
make the core free, and
run off support or other tricks (i.e. Trolltech: free linux version for
hackers, charge $$$ for Windows)
Although theoretically possible (even Horst pays for support, for example) this
model runs strongly counter to
the ideology of IT in this country.
Yes you certainly need a free core or nobody will come. I would
recommend GPLing the program and charging for add ons like MIMS and for
the packaging and support. No commercial company can come near your code
and its doubtful that more a handful of GPs have the time and expertise
to put it together themselves.
Ian notes a GPLed medical software program has been on the dream list
for a while. Richard King came within a few hours of it but he, or more
particularly his wife, were too battle scarred by the medical IT
industry to return to the front. It's an opportunity for a startup but
would require a reasonably rare combination of skills to make it happen.
David
_______________________________________________
Gpcg_talk mailing list
[email protected]
http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
