I am the first to admit my lack of technical knowledge and expertise and this is why I defer to many on this list and others during discussions involving the implementation of specs and standards in Health IMIT. This would also extend to the huge task of overall health care reform.
I have had several years of involvement in the RACGP and Divisions delivering services in the area of IMIT. I did not have the luxury during that time to sit in an ivory tower or a silo somewhere to contemplate the 'big picture' as I had a fine balancing act to deliver day-to-day services that fell within the scope of a contract with the federal government while trying to deliver what GPs actually wanted in terms of Information Management and Technology in their practices. >From Day 1 for me, that service included education, training and heightened awareness of security issues involved when using computers and the Internet in the surgery. One of the issues I always included was explanation of file formats and their advantages and disadvantages. MS Word documents always fell into the less advantageous basket due to security (macro viruses) and interoperability issues - at that time, there were still an abundance of Word Perfect users and also some Mac users so my recommendation was to save as rtf when needing to exchange with others for editing and creating as pdf when wanting to post on the Internet. Although I am not directly and specifically in the health arena today, I am involved in community programs of education and training in IMIT and continue to discourage use of MS Word doc format as a way to distribute files. Another reason to convert a .doc to a .pdf is that for most files (those without copious amount of graphics or tables), this can significantly compress the file size, making download over a pathetically slow rural dialup connection a bit easier. I know this probably doesn't matter for the couple of files currently posted on the website in question but it is so much easier, not to mention free, to make pdf files today than it was a few years ago, I am just trying to figure out why people aren't getting the message! To most on this list, I would be considered to be preaching to the converted and I realise this is a trifling issue in comparison to the nutting out of web services and what messaging 'standards' will win out in the end and also the bigger picture of Health Care Reform but it disheartens me that these 'little' details still get ignored and, yes, I will pedantically continue to energetically thump an expired equine over the small issues because that is the level at which I am operating - dealing with the 98% of users *not* represented on this list. BTW - didn't we have this same discussion last July on the old GPCG_TALK list? Regards, Jan -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of David More Sent: Sunday, 26 February 2006 10:04 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; General Practice Computing Group Talk Subject: RE: [GPCG_TALK] Efficient health care; role of PHI Jan, I think you are a trifle form over substance. Cheers David ---- Dr David G More MB, PhD, FACHI Phone +61-2-9438-2851 Fax +61-2-9906-7038 Skype Username : davidgmore E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Sun, 26 Feb 2006 12:24:42 +1100, J Collett wrote: >> Take a look at: >> >> http://www.healthreform.org.au/index.asp >> > I'll read them when they start posting their articles and editorials in a more appropriate format > such as the conventional .pdf. > >> http://www.hospitalreformgroup.org/ >> > Awaiting them to post their 'papers' to substantiate their 'Manifesto' - and hopefully, these > also will take accepted file format of pdf. > > Jan > -- > Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.9/261 - Release Date: 15/02/2006 > _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] > http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk > > __________ NOD32 1.1418 (20060224) Information __________ > > This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system. > http://www.eset.com -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.1.0/269 - Release Date: 24/02/2006 _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
