On Mon, 3 Nov 2003, Tim Churches wrote: ... > > This is MOST interesting! OIO must be the only EMR system which can > > do this! If you may remember I wrote to you in an email of this > > possiblity when we discovered Knoppix. I have been speaking of this > > to my colleagues and now it has come true!
Nandalal and Tim, Yes, I agree this approach has promising implications. Tim Cook mentioned the attractiveness of having an "appliance"-type software package - that includes all components that are known to work together. Delivering such a package on a single bootable CD-ROM seems reasonable. ... > That might be quite viable provided that the server was powered via a good > (regularly tested!) UPS (uninterruptable power supply), Even with hard-disk dependent servers, UPS is required. In this case, we can do without all the maintenance hassles of having a hard-disk drive; the UPS requirement remains the same. > and you would still want to checkpoint (dump and save) the database to > the USB device fairly often - certainly many times each day. Ultimately (~6 months?), I am thinking more of a 2-computer high-availabilty cluster with CD-ROM, inter-connected via network, each with an USB flash device and automatic q30min backup. There is a Knoppix clustering project, which could be a good starting point. > By having more than one USB and rotating them offsite, you could even > have encyrpted (Knoppix does this for you) offsite back- ups of your > database in your shirt pocket or on your keyring. Offsite backup is best done via network. Transporting USB devices off-site is already supported via LiveOIO's current mechanism. > The limiting factor would be the size of the database, and the amount of > time it takes PostgreSQL to dump it to a compressed dump file, and > possibly the amount of time it takes to copy that file to the USB device > (since USB 1.1 interfaces are a bit slow, as previously discussed). It takes roughly 3 mintues to produce a 30MB pg_dump SQL file and compress it with zip (about 3000 patients each with 10 OIO forms). The final output is about 3MB - which takes much less than 1 minute to save to USB device over USB 1.1 interface. So, let's say 3-5 minutes for full backup of a typical clinic site. (These numbers are based on Pentium 333 cpu using SCSI hard-drive. Using RAM only + speedier CPU may improve performance.) > Someone needs to experiement with this and report back... The relevant bottleneck is no longer performance and hardware, it is software flexibility and usability. How can we produce software that work in psychiatry as well as urology? How can we rapidly support new medical knowledge and therapeutic/billing procedures? Can medical staff install and maintain these systems or do we need IT professionals for day-to-day operational support? We are getting ever closer. Best regards, Andrew --- Andrew P. Ho, M.D. OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes www.TxOutcome.Org
