I am surprised to hear you say this Andrew. If Argus was open sourced and allowed you to transmit HL7 messages using GPG and was indifferent to sending and receiving applications as long as they handled an agreed HL7 message why would the US and other countries not be interested?On Sun, 21 Dec 2003, Richard D Piper wrote:I have not used Argus, but it seems to be trying to address this problem with respect to email. I doubt it has a chance of being successful unless it becomes an opensource/open standard ....I doubt it. Even if Argus is free/open source, I doubt there will be much interst for it in the U.S..
I should also note from the link you gave (http://uob-community.ballarat.edu.au/cceh/Argus/HTML/Argus%20Information%20Guide%20A.htm#_Toc25491985) that Argus has:-
"2.5.5 Generic HL7 handling
HL7 messages are not all the same there is a huge variety of HL7 types. Many programs claim to be HL7 compliant. What they are able to do is translate specific types of HL7 messages. Try to get them to use a brand new HL7 message, for which they have not been programmed and they cannot cope. Using a new message requires changes to the program, involving weeks or months of programming and testing.
Argus has a totally configurable HL7 engine that allows the translation of HL7 messages to be defined in script files, outside of Argus. Think of this as creating a recipe for a particular message. Import the recipe into Argus and voila! Argus is compatible with the new message. Upgrading Argus to use a new message takes hours, not weeks, and requires no program changes."
It also appears to have the ability to display HL7 messages in HTML (from the same page 2.5.5.)
"When the results are received by email at the practice, Argus translates the HL7 data into a (more readable) format, HTML (a web page). The resultant form can be made to look like the physical form the lab would send in the mail or by fax. Argus can also automatically drop the (untouched) HL7 data into a directory so that the results appear in a GCS too."
It may be too late for Oz but if Argus gets GPG and an open source license, then other countries may well be happy to pick it up and Andrew Shrosbree's efforts will not have been in vain.
David
