Monthly Archives: May 2006

Hospital OS Software, Key to Sustainable Development in Thai Hospitals

Nowadays, large hospitals in Thailand have started investing a hefty sum of money in internal information management system to increase their healthcare service efficiency. However, the majority of hospitals in Thailand, especially those in remote communities, still lack Information Technology (IT) fund for such software development.

In Thailand, rural hospitals not only provide healthcare services, but also function as the center of community development. Providing access to hospital information management system to community hospitals means higher healthcare service efficiency and better quality of life for the people. Hence, �Hospital OS,� Thailand�s first open-source hospital information management system software, is born to strengthen local community development and knowledge sharing at the grass-rooted level.

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Corporation Crushes Working FOSS EMR

Kevin Toppenberg writes on the hardhats list:
I’m frustrated and need to vent a bit. My medical group now consists of 2 office complexes–the main office and my satellite office. At the end of this month, most of the doctors (those in the main office) will be changing management such that they become part of a nearby hospital. That hospital, in turn, is part of a much larger multi-state healthcare network. So the hospital is going to redo the network connections, bringing
hospital-level security. Everything has to be standardized. And guess what? There is “zero possibility” that a linux server will be
allowed on that network. And if I upgraded to the internet-capable CPRS client, and put my linux server on a separate network, even that would have to go through a (lengthy) coporate approval process which I doubt would be successful. So in a week, my main office will go from having a cost-effective opensource EMR, back to a point where transcriptionists type up notes in Word, print, then delete the file. What a waste! Supposedly “in 6 months” there is going to be a corporate-wide roll out of some other EMR with lots of bells and whistles. Who knows how that will work out…”

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MirrorMed releases MirrorMed 1.0 RC3

The latest release of MirrorMed is now available for download. MirrorMed-1.0RC3 has several new important features. Mostly, the billing workflow has been dramatically improved.

1. FreeB billing pre-validation. Make sure its right, before it leaves!
2. Reworked X12 that supports several more loops.
3. Javascript validation on most Admin menu data items.
4. Several bugs, one SQL error, one Mysql 5.0 issue and several php 4.4 issues.

This release was sponsored by Shelby Reed.

Trotter

ClearHealth training course summer dates are filling up quickly

Uversa is offering the following training dates for our ClearHealth comprehensive course at our Phoenix offices throughout the summer: June 14-16, July 12-14, and August 16-18. Only one slot remains for open for the June dates and a handful for June & July. LMN readers receive a 10% discount. Designed for users of all levels, the three-day course covers the ClearHealth calendar, patient demographics and EMR, billing, and reporting. As part of the course Uversa helps users input their own practices data for a fully functional ClearHealth install, no matter what a person’s experience level with the product. At the end of the training session you can walk away with a functioning ClearHealth installation. ClearHealth is capable of being used in practices large and small, the same goes for our training, we are happy to tailor it to the specific needs of the participants. For more information or to purchase training you can call us at 1-877-UVERSA8 or visit our website.

Why Choose Plone over J2EE, Ruby on Rails, TurboGears, JBoss,or django?

Medical software development is very difficult to do and pushes the limits of computer science and programming. Here is a 40 minute Quicktime webcast that is an entertaining, practical side by side comparison of 6 popular development environments by a Jet Propulsion Lab engineer. The conclusion is that ZOPE-based Plone is the best for web development. Some of the metrics are: 225 minutes for a J2EE web application versus about 10 minutes for a web application in Plone that is more functional than the J2EE one. He also likes Rails and Django but the winner is Plone. The webcast is a large download. I’m seeing if it is available in slide form. Disclaimer: Linux Medical News has run ZOPE since its inception in 2000.

New Google initiative

eHealth News Portal has a news article discussing the new Google initiative named Google Co-op beta. For several months there has been speculation about a new Google project for health, and it seems that those discussions were correct.

Google Co-op beta is a community where users can contribute their knowledge and expertise to improve Google search for everyone. Organizations, businesses, or individuals can label web pages relevant to their areas of expertise or create specialized links to which users can subscribe.

Once a user has subscribed to a provider’s content, all of that provider’s labels and subscribed links are added to the user’s search results for relevant queries. These contributions serve as meta information that helps Google’s search algorithms connect users to the most relevant information for their specific query. Users interested in contributing can get started at http://www.google.com/coop.

Yours,
eHealthNews.EU Portal

Eclipse Open Healthcare Framework

There is an interesting new (to me) project called the Eclipse Open Healthcare Framework (OHF). Eclipse is a highly regarded Free and Open Source, cross-platform, Java-centric, Integrated Development Environment (IDE). According to the project proposal page the goal of OHF: ‘…is to extend the Eclipse Platform to create an open-source framework for building interoperable, extensible healthcare systems. We also intend to develop a complementary set of exemplary tools. OHF will enable software providers and integrators to cost-effectively create customized offerings for healthcare delivery organizations that comply with government regulations and industry standards.

The Open Healthcare Framework will develop infrastructure, tools, components, and services that will support development of both client and server applications. Client development will be based on RCP and server components will be based on J2EE together with core Eclipse concepts such as plug-in based extensibility…’

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OpenEMR to run Womens Health Services of Santa Fe

Womens Health Services of Santa Fe, New Mexico was recently awarded $70,000 in additional funding from the City of Santa Fe for their work providing health services to individuals in the the City of Santa Fe. Currently Women’s Health Services provides 7,000-10,000 clinic visits a year to this population. Women’s Health Services was selected by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Office on Women’s Health to develop a National Community Center of Excellence in Women’s Health (Santa Fe CCOE) in 2001. Women’s Health Services have selected OpenEMR to handle their electronic health record needs.

A portion of the funding went to hardware to be used for electronical medical records. The Women’s Health Services has been running OpenEMR in a trial project with three physicians. Women’s Health Services is now ready to use OpenEMR in the main the clinic.

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