Oliver Frank wrote:
We are now about to move to the next stage. I am expecting during this
week to start receiving pathology results via Argus from Clinpath, which
is the Adelaide laboratory owned by Sonic Healthcare. Once this starts,
I will be able to start reducing the number of result downloading
clients on our server, by removing Clinpath's own downloading software
from it. Clinpath's and Sonic's support for and use of Argus has led me
to change to Clinpath as my preferred pathology provider.
I understand that Sonic has been supporting the development and
implementation of Argus for some time, and has been trying to get its
fellow pathology practices and also the medical imaging practices to
contribute to the costs of supporting Argus. I believe that to date
these others have not contributed, despite their interest in changing to
using Argus rather than continuing with the commercial messaging systems
that they are currently paying significant amounts to use. Sonic is now
feeling a bit lonely in paying to support Argus, which will benefit
everybody, while none of the other current and potential beneficiaries
have contributed.
ArgusConnect and its current and potential sponsors need active support
now from users and potential users of Argus. When I told my former
preferred pathology provider (the State owned Institute of Medical and
Veterinary Science) that I was changing to Clinpath/Sonic because
Clinpath is supporting and using Argus, I received an immediate strong
reaction from IMVS. Clearly pathology and imaging practices are very
sensitive to anything that may influence their market share.
For those of us who have a choice in pathology and medical imaging
providers, our most powerful way of supporting Argus and helping to
increase its use is to choose to use the pathology and imaging providers
that are supporting and using Argus, and to make sure that we tell those
providers and their competitors why we are doing this. We need to put
our clinical practice where our mouth is, by showing our pathology,
imaging and medical specialist colleagues that we regard improved
electronic communication and the use of the available open source
not-for-profit Australian product as so important that it influences our
choice of provider. If we don't do this, we will have only ourselves to
blame if we find that we have to depend on profit-making commercial
messaging providers to send our clinical messages.
Great. Good to see the quality of the pathology doesn't get a mention
as a reason to stay with a provider.
Also to be fair, many of the other practices out there are using their
own in house developed IT delivery suites rather than the open source
argus product. Do you expect them to throw that investment away (after
many thousands of dollars invested? In fact in that setting argus may
end up costing a provider more money (to migrate and support the server
side which is not afaik free).
Sonics image you are casting as an altruistic force majeur benefiting
the people is questionable. Might it have been a strategic move to
prevent any one player from jamming itself into the middleman spot,
locking up the countries messaging and charging everyone lots of money
as has happened in some other countries? Perhaps it relates to a desire
to have electronic requesting (and cut down data entry) see the
mainstream light.
Oh and before I go, can you enlighten us on how Sonic has been rallying
the troops to support Argus - I for one have never heard a breath of
official air from the Sonic camp to get behind argus though I have been
out of the loop a little?
And can you help me with an idea of what costs Pathology incurs to use
Argus? Last I looked it was minimum $4k to consider it (for a single Dr
pathology practice). I guess Sonic's costs would be a lot more but that
level for 1 specialist is still a fair chunk of cash.
Dont get me wrong here. Ive always been a proponent of interoperability
and standards for clinical messaging and support any system thats
prepared to interoperate. Also I heartily commend the Argus team for
their open source stance. I'll look at any open and interoperable
solution. For years Ive wanted to be able to have everyone interconnect
and have only 1 client at the GP end.
But its really about interoperating between people's systems of choice
isnt it? Not about "shifting everyone to one platform"
Did you ask the IMVS if they can deliver results to your argus client by
chance? How did they respond? Would you have changed if they could
deliver to your argus install? Did you install argus yourself?
Can you convince me to pay money to argus to support them even though I
dont send with them and run a totally different system but can still
deliver to an argus client?
Its free interoperability you want really isnt it? That way you can
choose your favorite client (clearly Argus) and I can choose my
favourite sending software and we can all live happily ever after...
Go for Argus if thats your flavour. But ask your current provider if
they can deliver to an Argus site. Support interoperability!!!
Ultimately thats what we need.
JD
--
=================================================
dr john dooley mbbs frcpa
aka "ron"
_______________________________________________
Gpcg_talk mailing list
[email protected]
http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
