Re: address@hidden: Re: [Gnumed-devel] So you want to gain some with GNUmed ?]

[Sebastian Hilbert]

Am Dienstag 20 Juli 2010, 23:37:27 schrieb Lee Crites, Admin for TBFed:
> On Tue, 2010-07-20 at 23:26 +0200, Karsten Hilbert wrote:
> > > ----- Forwarded message from Lee Crites <address@hidden> -----
> > > 
> > > > Well, my major client is a doctor who needs an EMR ...
> > 
> > ...
> > 
> > > > By "we," I mean the doctor (who is medical director for a rehab
> > > > hospital), those he works with (several medical associations as well
> > > > as other doctors and such), and perhaps ultimately many of the other
> > > > rehab hospitals his is a part of (90+ across the US).
> > 
> > How about Vista by VA ?
> 
> I have not really looked at it at all, but he has. He goes to our local
> VA hospital, and doesn't really like it as much. I honestly have no clue
> one way or the other.
> 
> Is it fairly customizable? Can I add new modules and functions? How
> about new kinds of records to the database?
> 
> I did about 10 minutes of checking into it. Found out I could download
> it for free, but didn't even find out if it would run on my linux
> servers and/or what language or DBMS environment it needed.
> 

I have never seen it in action myself. All I know is that it is the only 
somewhat free hospital grade solution out there. You  need to do a lot of 
research on it (there is tons of information out there). You can write your 
own modules but it takes a considerable learning curve. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VistA

Writing modules for GNUmed could be easier but if you really think of 
installing any FOSS EMR in a hospital setting you should look out for support 
contracts in case a bug crops up and you need a fix now. You can fix all bugs 
more or less easily but it takes time and management will kill you if the 
system is down for more then 24 hours I would assume. 

Our statement is GNUmed might have the potential to somwhow fit into a 
hospital and could be extended to cater for it (it is Open Source) but we 
won't say it was designed for it.

You can take a SUV on the racing track and will get you to the finish line. 
but it was not designed to be a race car. That does not mean it cannot be 
better then the race cars out there :-)

Sebastian