> -----Original Message----- > From: Bill Walton > To: openehr-technical at openehr.org > Sent: 4/23/2003 6:00 PM > Subject: VistA knowledge / comments > > Is anyone here familiar enough with the open source VistA system here in > the U.S. to offer any comments about it in general and specifically > about it's storage subsystem? There's info on VistA at > http://www.va.gov/vista_monograph/ <http://www.va.gov/vista_monograph/>
Todd Smith wrote: > Hello Bill, > > You would be better off going to http://www.hardhats.org and subscribing to > the hardhats mailing list. That is where the real VistA experts are. > Tim Cook wrote: > You may want to start (open source wise anyway) with a study of GT.M > from Sanchez http://www.sanchez-gtm.com/ > > The next layer up is the Fileman modules: > http://www.hardhats.org/fileman/FMmain.html > Hi Todd, Tim; Thanks for your replies. I joined the Hardhats list about three weeks ago and have been lurking there to get a feel for what's going on, development-wise, with VistA at this point. I've also checked out the Fileman docs although I haven't dug into the implementation details. I apologize for not stating my question more directly. Basically, it's this. Given that VistA exists as an open source system with an architecture that includes a logically seperate storage subsystem with a database API that looks, at first glance, like it could be pretty easily implemented as an independent service, what drives this group to develop the openEHR server rather than simply seperate and potentially extend Fileman? If you'll permit me to make an uninformed guess, it looks to me (again, with open admission that I haven't researched VistA sufficiently) like there are at least a couple of motivations. First, openEHR seems to implement a higher level of abstraction than Fileman, moving more of the knowledge of content and structure (and access rights if what Sam's forwarded me gets implemented) of an EHR to the server and out of the application. Second, as a result of that, openEHR seems to allow more decoupling and simplification of the application than Fileman by allowing an application to query the server about the existence of content rather than requiring the application to try to access content and then deal with the case where the access fails. Am I anywhere close? Thanks in advance for your help. Best regards, Bill - If you have any questions about using this list, please send a message to d.lloyd at openehr.org
