Would like to add to your response the need for non-computer literate Healthcare Providers,
Patients, Payers, Regulators and others who would benefit from mechanisms to convey
information to computer-literate personnel that could in turn be translated into meaningful,
precise, accurate, detailed descriptions of at least conditions, environments and events.
Possibly multiple languages, some extensions of spoken languages, that can be used to
convey information and usable by all interested parties. For example, a codifiable,
meaningful extension to the English language that can be used effectively to retrieve
information from and broadcast information to non-computer literate Patients.
The example may be confusing but the application is clear. A Patient can converse in
a spoken language with a receptor than translates and collates information which is
then passed to processors which initiate information processing. Likewise, results
are translated into a spoken language and relayed to the Patient. The Patient can
gain access to this information multiple times.
Within this 'close' (e.g., information enclosure) multiple translations will likely be
necessary but will be transparent to the Patient. Communications between disciplines,
Providers and others would likely be as complicated as they are today but can be
worked out.
Regards!
-Thomas Clark
Wayne Brandes wrote:
Mr Raymond's views in this essay are as shortsighted as those he's accusing.
He complains that foss programmers have the hubris to assume that the instructions they write are understandable to themselves and therefore must be understandable to everyone else.
Yet his thesis is that if the programmers would only write instructions that were understandable to himself, a self-described "non-techy" despite the fact that, among other things he has successfully installed a linux home network, then surely they would be understandable to everyone else, and foss would usage would take off.
It's common, but shortsighted, to assume that what makes sense or is understandable to oneself is self evident and therfore must be understandable to everyone else.
But Mr Raymond is far from a non-techy by almost any definition. If instructions were written to his level there would still be a vastly greater pool of less experienced computer users who would still not be able to understand them. Until foss software becomes usable by that group, the averge home computer user, making it understandable to the rarified air of Mr Raymond's level will do little to widely advance its implementation.
IMHO
------------------------------------------------- Wayne Brandes, DO MPH Director of Healthcare Informatics American Institutes for Research Prospect Center 10720 Columbia Pike Silver Spring, MD 20901 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------------------------------
----Original Message Follows----
From: Fred Trotter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: support <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED], OpenHealth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Eric Raymond on interfaces
Date: 26 Feb 2004 20:29:38 -0600
This article http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html
Should serve as an essential part of the way we do things here in medical FOSS. We may trail behind in every other respect, but if we could excel here, we would truly dominate.
Definatley worth a read.
-- Fred Trotter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> SynSeer << signature.asc >>
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