Comments below: On 9/12/05, Fred Trotter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hey, > As is often the case, what was meant to be an aside has cause quite a > thread.
Bandwidth is cheap these days, so lets talk! :-) > > I want to reply in summary to all of the emails, but i feel that Kevins > comments, below are particularly pointed.. > > > > I just went to the ClearHealth and ran the Demo. It seems mostly like > > a practice management system (i.e. calendars, encounters, billing), > > but I found it hard to find the "chart", i.e. progress notes etc. > > ClearHealth has most of its EHR system undefined, we allow arbitrary > extension of data. We are going to be working with the OIO project to > get some good default data someday and then there should be more "to > see" of the EHR capabilities on ClearHealth. > > However your practice management system point is very valid. ClearHealth > does have that as its primary base. I think the VistA crowd focus alot > on extending and improving high-level functionality of the EHR compnents > of VistA, and as a result lose sight of the fact that the reason they > can have those discussions is that VistA became, a long time ago, a > really good way to run a VA hospital. > > Running a practice is pretty complex and practice management is more > important than EHR functionality to about 90% of the people in private > practices. Amen! I am trying figure out the practice management system that our group bought a year ago. I'm have having to first understand the problems that the software is designed to fix, and then understand how it tries to help. Ugghh. I went to medical school, not business school! ClearHealth is the first open source application to seriously > address practice management functionality. This is not to knock other > projects, we are so far along precisely because we started by studying > them. > > The reason why the "hub and spoke" model is valid is because the spokes > need practice management and the hub does not. Thats what makes the > ClearHealth/VistA or the VistAOffice/VistA team such a winner, they are > addressing different parts of the same issue. > -snip- Fred, to be honest, there is a lot of discussion on this, but not a lot of code production--from what I can tell. I think that if you have a valid practice management system that could be integrated with VistA, then someone (and likely someone on your end) is going to have to create a interface. Then publish it, and see what we can do on our end. I would love to see a WorldVistA code base released that is as functional as possible. Bhaskar makes LiveCD's, and perhaps if you could somehow have a configuration of ClearHealth that could be plugged in, then you might convince him to include it. I guess what I am saying is that I would vote for having VistA take care of the medical records part, and have ClearHealth operate as the PM end. And I think this is what you indicated you would like to see on a recent conference call. As you know, It is possible to capture billing data such as ICD9 codes, and associated CPT codes. So what is really needed is an enumeration of what data you need. We can then set up an HL-7 message sender and pass that info to ClearHealth. From there you can do what you do best. And from ClearHealth, I would want to see an HL-7 messenger that sends information about appointments that have been made, as well as demographics. Registration (esp outpatient registration) has been a weakspot of VistA, and ClearHealth could help out there. But I think the first step is going to have to come from your end, because you understand what ClearHealth needs. Kevin ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference & EXPO September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices Agile & Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects & Teams * Testing & QA Security * Process Improvement & Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list Hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
