Oliver Frank wrote: > Tim Churches wrote: >> Oliver Frank wrote: >> >>> There are a number electronic clinical messaging systems available in >>> Australia. The Argus clinical messaging system is the leader in >>> desirable features, including the facts that it is the only >>> non-commercial system in wide use and that it imposes no charges to send >>> or receive messages. >> >> >> "Non-commercial" is not quite right because the Argus folks *are* >> running a business (and that's a good thing, and they should keep doing >> so). However, apart from a) the lack or per-message charges, the other >> things which sets Argus apart are that b) it is the only openly >> interoperable secure messaging system, c) the only one that will keep >> working even if the vendor goes belly-up or decides to withdraw from the >> Australian market (due to its reliance on well-support and ubiquitous >> SMTP mail services provided by every ISP and data centre and even every >> practice Linux server in the country), and d) the only one which has its >> main software code base freely available under an open source license. >> a) and b) make the Argus approach extremely scalable and c) and d) make >> it a very low risk proposition from a business perspective. > > My use of the expression 'non-commercial' was intended to convey the > fact that no person can ever collect any profit that may be generated by > ArgusConnect, because the ownership of the IP of Argus is vested in a > not-for-profit Foundation established to provide health informatics > software in the public interest. (This is my non-lawyer's understanding > and explanation). It is true in a strictly legal sense that > ArgusConnect is a business, but it is a business only because lack of > government funding that many of us believe that Argus should be > receiving forces ArgusConnect to generate income in order to be able to > continue operating. Simply describing ArgusConnect as a business > misrepresents it because normal businesses are run for the personal > profit of those running them, which is not the case with ArgusConnect. > > I hope that Ross Davey may be able to come up with a one sentence > explanation of how Argus differs in this important respect from all of > its competitors.
Oliver, Ross can correct this if I am mistaken but I think you may be confusing the Health OpenWare Foundation, which is a non-profit entity that holds the IP for ArgusConnect, and the company that Ross runs, ArgusConnect Pty Ltd. As it says on the home page at http://www.argusconnect.com.au/ : "ArgusConnect Pty Ltd operates in Australia to deploy, install, support and further develop the Argus suite of secure messaging software products under licence from the Health OpenWare Foundation – the not-for-profit steward of the Argus range of products." Personally I think that is is good that ArgusConnect Pty Ltd operates as a self-sustaining business, without the need for government funding. That said, some competitively awarded govt R&D grants for software development in e-health in Australia would be a Very Good Thing, and I am sure ArgusConnect would be in the running for such grants were they to be offered, and such additional funding would speed along development, and would perhaps even allow implementation of NEHTA-decreed/endorsed standards and approaches t occur in our lifetimes. Tim C _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
