Mumps was designed by some very, very bright people working at an excellent
hospital to model narrative medical discourse. Medical discourse has not
changed since then. If passages of Mumps are difficult to read, passages of
other programming languages are difficult to read also. It happens also that
the largest EMR in existence is expressed in Mumps: VistA, and all the source
code is available to anyone who wants it. I'm reluctant to throw all that
away. In addition, as a doctor, I find the average hand-written patient chart
a whole hell of a lot more difficult to read than Mumps/Java/C/etc. I am very
impatient with efforts to re-create the wheel when patients are receiving
sub-optimal care because of lousy medical record keeping.
The point about the article is that the VistA system is going to be given
great weight when the discussion of how to reduce unnecessary medical deaths
occurs. How easily will Kenneth Kizer make his voice heard in Washington when
the discussion begins?
And, finally, I'm not advocating Mumps. I'm advocating throwing away as
little as possible and accomplishing something in my lifetime.
John
Rob Cecil wrote:
> I fail to see the revelance of this article in regard to Mumps. Please,
> we have all heard about Medical errors, and I am sure it is a personal
> demon in the backs of most people's minds. If you want to promote "M",
> do so on technical merits. I have already seen today
> (http://vmacs.vmth.ucdavis.edu/demo/rtn/DIDTC.html) how Mumps is still
> difficult to read.
>
> Rob
