I agree Tim.
IF this project were to take off (and it appears to have evolved from a
few casual comments a week ago - clearly there is a mood to do such a
thing) then the basic parameters need to be right.
I have the greatest respect for Horst's abilities.
However we are not all industry professionals and are possibly easier to
impress than they would be :) A second opinion would be useful.
It is clearly a large undertaking and it is likely that it will founder
fairly quickly.
I think we are at the stage in the design process of "feasibility"
assessment - can/should we do it?
It probably doesnt pass the feasibility test in several areas
Financial/economic
on the plus side there is no doubt in my mind that the cost savings
could be significant to practices if a viable system could be delivered.
Some of the list members couild be beneficiaries of this. However, on
the minus side there is no direct link between beneficiaries and those
who are proposing to do the coding/management. In other words we dont
have a group of clinicians looking for a better way with money to do so.
Some money may be available, but it is likely to be well short of what
is required. Much of the work will be gratis.
Technical
Given enough resources the actual coding is probably not that hard -
several industry players have delivered systems written by small groups
of developers. There is a code and experience base in Gnumed and
previous projects. Open source systems ahve advanced a lot in recent
years. To deliver a basic clinical system without any research level
addons should be technically feasible (there that was easy :))
However I think there should be a complete practice suite of software
Operational
Will the system solve the business problem (what is the business
problem? Is there a business problem?) I have a vague frustration withe
current systems, but I guess I can live with them as I am a contractor
and there is no significant financial penalty to me.
I guess I would like to do it to scratch an itch and to move things
forward in the standards area and public health area. I would also learn
a lot about IT if I was heavily involved. Is that a good enough reason?
Schedule
Will we get it done in a reasonable timeframe? What is the timeframe?
Legal
Are there legal barriers to such a project? I cant see any
Political
What will the political effect be? Are there any political
showstoppers? Will others try to sabotage the project? Could it force
proprietary vendors to change their approach? Would it open up standards?
Having said all that I still like the idea
R
Tim Churches wrote:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Quoting Tim Churches <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
Horst Herb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Minix and Linux to me illustrate the battle between academia and
pragmatic engineering. Of course the pragmatic engineer will take a leaf
out of
the academic book and benefit from teachings and research, but what they
do
and how they do it is very, very different from academic "solutions".
I suppose we are most interested here in solutions which see the light of day
and can thus be used by many people, not just their genius progenitor -
regardless of where such solutions come from.
Gentlemen, please! ;-)
Sorry, but frankly I am still smarting from being accused by Horst of
spreading unfounded FUD, just because I dared suggest that it might be
worth double checking Horst's take on RoR as the ant's pant's of Web
application frameworks.
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