Calle,
> > The McMaster PCN was unique because in addition to care delivery it
> teaches, conducts research and is heavily involved in evidence based
medicine.
I should have mentioned the context in which I was saying the McMaster PCN
was unique. Of the six pilot sites that were selected they were the only one
which also had an academic and research mandate. All the others were regular
group practices. McMaster also had a role in developing and implementing the
capitation based (HSO) business model that the government is interested in
spreading to the rest of the province. They have been using the HSO model
for many years and there is great interest in how to use this model to
advance preventative care etc. Unlike the HMO model, the public still has
the freedom to choose which doctor they want to see etc. So their expertise
in the business model also made them unique.....in Canada.
> The over-focusing on the TOOLS (e.g. software) is not only dominant among
> software developers, it's dominant among health managers too
Yes I have seen a great deal of software "relgious fanaticism" in my time
too. I can't say this was this case for McMaster when I was hired almost two
years ago. They had recently switched to OSCAR's predecessor from a
"commercial" system and were still in the process of change management.
MUFFIN.....the predecessor to OSCAR was not developed at McMaster and was
only adopted there 3 years ago after Dr. Chan had joined the Department. So
it had to be "sold" to the user community and there still was some
convincing to do as we entered the Primary Care project.
Cheers,
Joseph
----- Original Message -----
From: "Calle Hedberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2001 7:08 AM
Subject: Re: OSCAR lessons learned
> Joseph wrote:
> >
> > The McMaster PCN was unique because in addition to care delivery it
> teaches,
> > conducts research and is heavily involved in evidence based medicine.
They
> > were also unique in that they had their own software. (...)
>
> It's not unique (we have followed the same "paradigm" in South Africa for
> years, based on three decades of experience partially coming out of the
> "Scandinavian School of Informatics"), but regrettably very uncommon.
>
> The over-focusing on the TOOLS (e.g. software) is not only dominant among
> software developers, it's dominant among health managers too. We see again
> and again that people get hooked on our software (taking up max 20% of our
> overall efforts), whereas the crucial areas are institutional and human
> resource development (transformation, research to understand the "business
> logic", implementation, training, etc).
>
> Regards
> Calle
>
> *********************************************
> Calle Hedberg
> 3 Pillans Road,
> 7700 Rosebank, SOUTH AFRICA
> Tel/fax (home): +27-21-685-6472; Cell: +27-82-853-5352
> Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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>
>
