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| Faxing and e-mail Modules Added to PhpMed |
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 Posted by Chris Deam on Saturday August 30, 2003 @ 12:49 AM
from the PhpMed now affering prescription faxing and integrated email dept.
PhpMed is proud to announce the availability of both incoming and outgoing fax service capability as well as integrated inter-office communication via a built in webmail interface. Digg this article
Incoming Fax Service works like this:
All incoming faxes are converted to a pdf file.
You can then use the full version of Adobe Acrobat to edit the pdf file if necessary. The incoming faxes all get spooled to a network share, which allows you insant access to drag and drop the files to their correct destinations.
Outgoing Fax Service works like this:
At the time of adding a refill to a medication, if you select "faxed" as the method, a window appears with all the refill infomation, patient information, etc. You choose a pharmacy from the drop down list and hit send. That's it! A record of the fax, who it was to, date, patient name, med name, etc is automatically recorded to a fax log which is then viewable from the administration panel.
You can also set up a "fax" printer on your windows clients and submit jobs to it from any windows application like a normal printer. Upon doing so, you are presented with a window which asks you to select a recipient, which is pulled via ODBC from the fax server. So all your fax recipients are pulled from the same source, no need for duplicate phonebook programs. Once you select a fax recipient, hit okay and the file is sent to the fax server. You can them monitor the progress of the file being sent.
This is not a flashy thing, just a real world implentation that works.
Please see the screenshots on the website.
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Re: Faxing and e-mail Modules Added to PhpMed
by Fred Trotter on Thursday September 04, 2003 @ 03:10 AM
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Chris,
I cannot help but wonder why you are doing what you are doing? FreeMED is a PHP-based system that has all (or at least most) of the functionality of your system, but is available under the GPL.
Why would someone pay $3000 for a license for your software, when exactly the same functionality is available for free (speech and beer) else where? Why would someone pay you to take control of them? I am sure that you will convince people that your software is a good idea, but isnt there some intellectual dishonesty in selling like this?
Obviously I have a bias, I am a core developer for FreeMED and I am pretty enthusiastic about the project, but honestly I do not understand your motivation.
The FreeMED Software Foundation is looking for people that would be able to effectively support FreeMED and you are obviously capable! Why not donate your code, and your time to the FreeMED project. You would be able to make exactly the same amount of money that you do now (From Doctors who NEEDED your help) and your moral position would be alot stronger! The control and safety of controlling your code is an illusion.
For every feature that you would have to add to FreeMED, you would get 10 in return. For every customer that you lost because they choose to install it themselves, there would be 5 who would hire you because they appreciated you not trying to control them.
I am only trying to win you to FreeMED because it is written in PHP! There are other excellent projects written using Zope or Java
Free Software Zealot
Fred Trotter
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Re: Faxing and e-mail Modules Added to PhpMed
by Chris Deam on Friday September 05, 2003 @ 02:05 PM
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Dear Mr. Trotter,
I cannot help but question your motives for posting a personal message such as this on a public forum, however, I will do my best to respond.
How could I morally offer a solid practice management/EMR application that works, is programed for the real flow of a doctor's office, runs on opensource software, is one-third the price of most PM/EMR programs, offers all the faxing and network services, and not charge for data importation?
In case you didn't catch it, that is a rhetorical question. You and I both know that I could easily charge twice and even three times what PhpMed costs and still be well under other PM/EMR software.
However, it is exactly my moral high ground that caused me to charge what I really feel is PhpMed's inherent value and no more. I have put a lot of work and knowledge into PhpMed to make it a solid system. I am sorry if I have struck a sour note with you and any one else at FreeMed. That was never my intention.
Choice is good. I am not trying to "control" PhpMed users. They are free to modify their own code to their liking, they just can't redistribute/sell that code. I think that is extremely fair. They also are not required to contribute that code back into the system (although it is extremely encouraged.)
Unfortunately I do not have the luxury of working for free unlike you (apparently.)
"Open Source" does not mean free. It simply means that I do not "control" the coding language/development tools of PhpMed or the underlying software it runs on and the end user is free to view/modify the source code they "buy".
I hope I have answered your questions to your satisfaction.
Sincerely,
Christopher Deam
President
Digital Home Port, Inc.
PhpMed Medical Software
www.phpmed.com
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Re: Faxing and e-mail Modules Added to PhpMed
by I. Valdes on Friday September 05, 2003 @ 03:32 PM
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While I agree that this discussion perhaps should be held privately, I cannot agree with some of your statements. In particular:
>"I am not trying to "control" PhpMed users. They >are free to modify their own code to their
>liking,"
Good, and in accordance with Free/Open Source Licenses.
>they just can't redistribute/sell that code."
Bad. Prohibiting redistribution is not in accordance with Free/Open Source Licenses and invalidates your claim that you are not trying to control PhpMed users. While it may be the case now, that you are not trying to control the users, there is no guarantee that this could change in the future at any time. You are basically saying 'trust us' with no guarantees.
>I think that is extremely fair. They also are not >required to contribute that code back into the >system (although it is extremely encouraged.)
Unfortunately, it isn't fair. Redistribution is a fundamental right of Free/Open Source software. If you accept contributed code while not giving the same rights that you have, that is not particularly fair.
>Unfortunately I do not have the luxury of working
>for free unlike you (apparently.)
Nor do most people. However, companies such as RedHat and OpenParadigms are able to make a living using Free/Open Source business models which yours really isn't. Your model is close, kind of a mixed free/proprietary model and I applaud you for your efforts using Free tools and language. But I think that not allowing redistribution rights will doom PhPmed to the same proprietary mistakes that have plagued other medical records software in the past.
I encourage you to contact myself and Fred Trotter offline because I think that your software and organization can become much greater by joining a much larger group that adheres to a straight FOSS model.
-- IV
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Re: Faxing and e-mail Modules Added to PhpMed
by Andrew P. Ho on Monday September 08, 2003 @ 02:01 PM
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Mr. Dean,
Mr. Dean,
Thank you for posting such reasoned and insightful responses to Mr. Trotter's questions. It is interactions like this that makes LinuxMedNews an invaluable resource. I agree with everything you said and I hope more "free software" users and developers will understand free/open-source as you do.
Your decision to use PHP does not mean you have to publish all your future work under an open-source license. On the contrary, your ability to set price and determine how you license your intellectual property is the crucial difference between open-source and communism. Communism takes away economic freedom while open source gives freedom. As the author of PhpMed, you should be free to decide what freedom you want to give to PhpMed users.
PhpMed users can decide for themselves whether to adopt FreeMed or PhpMed, or neither. There is no "dishonesty" involved since they can learn about FreeMed and PhpMed and review the respective licenses before they agree to the terms. If the relationship between you and your clients can be characterized as "control", then your clients also control you because you need their continued financial support to pay for food, mortgage etc.
In the end, all of us need to put food on the table. Some of us think free/open source methodology will help us become more productive, leading to more and better food etc. That's why some of us publish our work under open-source license(s). That, for example, is one of the reasons why you are now able to benefit from PHP.
So, sometimes people like Mr. Trotter and myself will enthusiastically propose that you adopt our methods and license your work under GPL. This generally comes from a genuine conviction that you will be more successful if you take this route. Of couse, we are not all that rich or famous yet so maybe our advice should be appropriately discounted :-).
Best regards,
Andrew
- Andrew P. Ho, M.D.
OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes
www.TxOutcome.Org
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Re: Faxing and e-mail Modules Added to PhpMed
by Chris Deam on Monday September 08, 2003 @ 10:33 PM
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Dear Mr. Ho,
Thank you for your comments. It is nice to see someone else is on the same page.
Sincerely,
Chris Deam
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