Fred: Your suggestions about how to help the AAFP would be very helpful to the us, and to all small medical practices. We have indeed not abandoned open source. Dan Johnson's appraisal of our situation and approach is very accurate, and was recently posted here, so I won't repeat.
If your group were to provide a web page or two about the current offerings for open source EHRs, for support of same, and an entry point for doctors wishing to pursue open source alternatives for office based practice IT, I would strongly consider posting this as part of our new web site for the Center for HIT www.aafp.org/CenterforHIT.xml DCK -- David C. Kibbe, MD Director Center for Health Information Technology American Academy of Family Physicians 406 Copperline Drive Chapel Hill, NC 27516 919-960-5290 office voice and fax 913-205-7968 mobile [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] > From: Fred Trotter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Organization: SynSeer > Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:06:06 -0500 > To: OpenHealth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: AAFP Sells Out > Resent-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Resent-Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 18:06:27 +0000 > > > As a community, we should be very patient with anyone who has done as > much for our cause as the AAFP. For the doctors that I talk to, the fact > that the AAFP investigated open source gives my project alot of > ligitimacy that it would not otherwise have. It is much easier to > convince a doctor that this kind of thing is respectible when I can show > that the AAFP thinks so. > > Now it may happen that someday the AAFP will change its direction. If > the article that Ignacio posted was current that would be evidence of > such a shift. But the article is not valid and Ignacio has apologized > and posted a correction. > > So, since the AAFP has not changed its direction, we should be much more > postive towards it. > > If the AAFP is more interested in the concerns of the doctors that they > represent, than they are in open source or free software, that is a > reasonable position. Given that position the AAFP must be resisiting a > tremendous amount of pressure from the industry regarding its current > position with regards to open source. > > Basically I am making the "walk a mile in thier shoes" argument. We > havent and we are pretty judgmental as a result. > > I respect Dr. Kibbes right to lurk on this list and considering the > flame that is passing very close to him at this point I am impressed > that he has bothered to write as much as he has. Nonetheless this > discussion is useless. We cannot control the AAFP and they might do > something that we might not like. Rather than continue to kick this dead > horse, I think we should move this discussion to something that is > relevant. "What can our movement do to attract the interest of > organizations like the AAFP?" > > How can we be more attractive to them? What can we do to garner thier > support? > > Right now we are reactive (to shadows I might add) instead of being > proactive. How can we be proactive? > > -- > Fred Trotter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > SynSeer >
