up a level  post article  search  admin  main  parent

Open Source: 'Of Great Value'? by AC on Monday June 11, @11:07PM He doesn't answer his own question: "Is [Open Source] the answer?" I say yes. Open-source software has a philosophy of transparency and open-ness. Even if the documentation isn't top-notch, it's always better than a commercial vendor with secrets to hide. Having good schema documentation is 'as open as you can get'. There is nothing more useful, except maybe a signed agreement from the company saying that they will personally fly to your site and dump the data into your new product for you. Also, you must consider that open-source allows you to run the systems in parallel after the conversion, in case you need to refer back for any reason. Keeping a "legacy system" after conversion is expensive with an ASP or a commercial program, as you will often find yourself paying for maintenance. I am all for an "EMR interchange standard", but I think it's unlikely to ever be perfect. You can bet that open-source will support it. In fact, open-source will probably lead the effort, since commercial companies have no incentives to create the standard. (I don't buy the argument that the market will grow with easier interchange.) -AC P.S. I think he is barking up the wrong tree when it comes to audit trails. There is no product on the market that can secure an EMR from a programmer. For example: Digital signatures are useless without secure key management. Secure key management goes out the window if someone on your network runs Outlook or the like. Post Reply Name Email Notify Notify me via email of responses to this message Title Comment (Check those URLs! Don't forget the http://!) Encoding HTML Structured Text Plain Text If none of the above mean anything to you, select 'Plain'! Attachment (You can attach a file to your reply which can then be retrieved by other readers. Try to keep the file sizes below 500Kb in order to conserve network and server resources.) Enter the above code (*Required) Allowed HTML <B> <I> <P> <A> <LI> <OL> <UL> <EM> <BR> <TT> <HR> <STRONG> <BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV .*> <DIV> <P .*> Important Stuff: Note: Fields with bold titles are required. Please try to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people comments instead of starting new threads, Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. Please do not post offtopic, inflammatory, inappropriate, illegal, or offensive comments. Repeat offenders will be sanctioned.

	www.linuxmednews.com Web
Advertisement: CCHIT certified EMR and Medical Practice Management Software from Medical Software Associates makes patient management easy. Free practice management and medical billing software demo available.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective companies. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest ©2000-2006 Ignacio Valdes, MD, MS.