Todd Smith wrote:
>Amen.
>
>The drek that we use here every day is criminally wrong. We have products
>from every major medical software vendor or have had in some cases and
>universally the quality is very low and the cost is very high. Your idea
>about a business plan is very useful since in certain quarters the money
>talks. I know that savings of over a mill a month could be possible with
>open-source assuming that the open-source didn't work any better then the
>software we have now.
This is exactly where I see *big* dollars and other resources coming into
development of Open Source software for healthcare. If you and others with a
large computing budget devote even a small fraction of those resources
toward developing Open Source applications we will arrive very quickly at
the point where it becomes totally obvious that everyone involved receives
more benefit than they put in.
In the case of MUMPS based software, such as VistA, and perhaps for
healthcare in general, the Open Source release of GT.M could be the key to a
near universal transformation of that perception.
If so, we can expect to see something like the phase change of a
supersaturated liquid to a solid. However, we must participate to make it
happen.
---------------------------------------
Jim Self
Manager and Chief Developer
VMTH Computer Services, UC Davis
(http://www.vmth.ucdavis.edu/us/jaself)
