Thank you for an extraordinarily comprehensive reply. A point that is being
made quite effectively is that there is no extant standard for an electronic
medical record in the way that there are standards for operating system design
or server design. Nevertheless, there are some extremely successful
electronic medical records, VistA stands out, because all patients take
medications, have physicals, give histories, see doctors, are allergic to
things, etc. Maybe, just maybe, the problem is simpler than it appears (it's
late at night, forgive me). VistA is very, very text-based, almost a
glorified word-processor (forgive me), but it seems to mirror medical reality.
Remember, the principle problem in medical records today is illegible
handwritten notes. Maybe the most accurate model is a bowl of spagghetti (a
word I can not spell). I'd love to have VistA in my hospital, but I'd hate to
support a programming language monopoly...back to open source.
John Gage
Thomas Beale wrote:
>
> - Most of the requirements of linux is not a subject of development - it is a given
>(unix
> API, device driver specs, X-windows library specs, etc etc). EHR software is not the
>same:
> there are no POSIX standard EHR/EMR requirements lying around for people to work
>from.
>
