Open Paradigms, LLC president Tim Cook made a major announcement today of possibly the first independent consultant program and sign of growth for the fledgling Free/Open Source Medical Software industry: ‘After receiving several requests from IT shops and independent consultants Open Paradigms,LLC has developed the Torch Independent Consultant (TIC) Program. The TIC program is designed to provide independent consultants with the information and tools needed install and support the electronic health record application TORCH. TORCH is licensed under the GPL and can be downloaded from the Open Paradigms,LLC website…’ The full text of the announcement is within.

After receiving several requests from IT shops and independent consultants Open Paradigms,LLC has developed the TIC Program.

The TIC program is designed to provide independent consultants with the information and tools needed install and support the electronic health record application TORCH. TORCH is licensed under the GPL and can be downloaded from the Open Paradigms,LLC website.

The TIC CD contains the latest version of TORCH and other software as well as information about the electronic health record market and to market to physicians and their office managers. Registration in TIC also provides the consultant with initial telephone and email support. Additional support packages are available for TIC partners.

Less than 10% of physicians are currently using an electronic health record system.
HIPAA regulations are increasing the documentation and reporting requirements for access to patient identifiable data. Using TORCH makes that task a background function. TORCH also makes it possible to give patients or consulting physicians access directly to the records.

TORCH is a template driven, Python based application that can be extended to support and medical speciality. TORCH uses a web browser interface. There is a demo on our website.

Get more information about TORCH and more specifically the TIC Program at the Open Paradigms,LLC website.