Re: [os-wg] NHS & MS - The New Deal

[Joseph Dal Molin]

I suppose the really sad thing for me about the NHS strategy is that it 
did not make room for any creative alternatives to spending big until it 
works or the ruling party is thrown out. While it is not the NHS's 
mandate to think globally this extravaganza of spending is of no use in 
other contexts... most of the rest of the planet... hence there is a 
great human opportunity cost hidden in all this. On the other hand we 
now have a good example to compare to when a country adopts a different 
approach... like Mexico which is in the early stages of deploying VistA 
in 200 public hospitals. Anyone out there want a good Phd research 
project???

Joseph
David Guest wrote:
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Ignacio Valdes wrote:
| On Wed, 03 Nov 2004 12:41:57 -0800 Tim Cook <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
|
|
|>> The problem is that they have massive funding, approved
|>> personally by Blair, which is burning a hole in their pocket -
|>> and each day that Blair's political fortunes worsen, the faster
|>> the hole is burnt. I am sure they feel that they need to sign
|>> contracts which lock-in that health IT refurbishment
|>> expenditure as quickly as possible.
|>
|>
|> An issue I hadn't considered.......
|>
|>> The question is, could any vendor have come up with a contract
|>> offer to swap 500,000 NHS desktops from Microsoft to Linux and
|>> OpenOffice and other open source within 3 years, including the
|>> porting of all the Windows-specific health software.
|
| Sure, IBM could suck up such amounts of money for a morning snack
| and do it all with OSS.
... but wouldn't that have been the ultimate solution. IBM makes a
squillion. Mr Blair still spends his half billion (because he really
cares) and most importantly the foundation for a more rational health
IT infrastructure is laid down.
David

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