How would I respond to how my hospital will implement EMR...we will probably
look to our current software vendor before we go running down Linux and try
programming it for ourselves. why?? well, we know our vendor is developing
in that area already. They will likely create something that will a)
easily link to b) replace or c) enhance our current legacy system.
will that be close to what is in progress here remains to be seen. to
expect the different medical providers (hospitals, medical/dental practices)
who have already implemented computer based patient accounting and tracking
systems and still use paper charts, to throw away what they already paid
into (besides monetary, in time used, learning to use, and potential cost of
conversion) in favor of some undeveloped database. I suspect that whatever
is built will need links to current medical systems, even if it is a
translation table to link indexes from the older accounting system or
patient index to the newer EMR. The current medical software vendors will
probably have proprietary software to enhance what they already sell to
include the EMR model. Perhaps newer systems that will come down the road
will overshadow the older systems enough for new medical providers to use
them and when it comes time for the current medical providers to replace
what they have, the newer EMR systems will of added in comparable accounting
and patient tracking modules to make it worthwhile.
Chris Furnari
Programmer/Systems Integration
Information Systems Division
Westchester Medical Center, Valhalla, NY
Phone: 914.493.7049 Fax: 914.493.1698
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John S. Gage [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2000 9:47 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: CorbaMed as OS
>
> How do I respond to critics who say that, if CorbaMed is the how of EMR,
> then it is just another OS/API that has to be written to? I remember
> when I first looked at it, I was turned off by the fact that it was
> expressed in C++, which at the time, because I was up to my ears in
> Java, I didn't want to be bothered with. Despite the fact that Corba's
> promise is to make all OO languages talk to each other, so any
> individual programmer can code away in any OO language to his heart's
> content, isn't it the case that it's just another API, that slows
> everything it touches down, and, like HL7 2.x serves to prop up a Tower
> of Babel that no one needs to prop up?
>
> Why do I say this (particularly because it's so politically incorrect)?
> If we measure programming languages along a variety of axes, then two
> stand out: interoperability and ease-of-use. Corba does not speak to
> ease-of-use. In fact, Brian and Tim wrote Web CorbaScript specifically
> to introduce ease-of-use into the Corba landscape. Corba speaks to
> interoperability. But, interoperability assumes that everyone will be
> using a different programming language, different operating system,
> different database management system, different everything. Now, that
> does exactly represent the current status of EMR, but does it
> necessarily represent the future of EMR?
>
> I don't think so. I think that when price competition starts to hit
> medical software, programmers will settle on a singel OS and a single
> database model, which will be dictated in large part by the excellent
> standards work going on in the domain. The OS will be Linux (does IBM
> agree with me?) and the database will be something that does
> XML/Objects/SQL all at once.
>
> I'm sorry this is controversial, but I would like to at least have this
> point of view dismissed effectively.
>
> John
