thelinuxlink.net

Hi guys,
I started listening to the podcast of show #290 . I haven't listened to the whole thing yet because it is so long! I think your discussion with Niel the dentist and his issues with dental management software programs and open-molar is fascinating and timely. I am a medical doctor, a pediatrician in rural New Mexico. We're a small office and just get by financially making payroll and overhead. We see mostly Medicaid patients.

There is a huge push on the federal level (ie Obama administration) for electronic medical records (emr). Nobody seems to know the details, but there is an expectation that all doctors go entirely electronic in 5 years. Since I am young and have a few years to think it over, I am carefully looking at all my options as far as implementing this technology. Most vendors of emr are very expensive; we're looking at $125,000 for an office my size. To put something that costly into my little practice is absolutely out of the question. There are a few that are less expensive but they have their limitations. The software is almost entirely windows based. Obviously I would prefer to avoid any windows based product, especially for such sensitive information as medical records. I am also worried about running into the same issues Dr. Niel ran into, with the limitations of proprietary software. Can you imagine the amount of money that will be going into emr's in the next few years!?

Here is what I'm looking at doing: Using an open source emr and programming it to adjust to the specific needs of my clinic. There is an open source project called GNU-med that I have started to look into. It is written in python. I would love to program this to my needs and then share it with the pediatric community. I wanted to attend the DOHCS conference last month but I heard about it too late. I'm at the very very beginning of this process, which is why I want to hear more from. I haven't even figured out how to open GNU med yet. I don't think many American doctors are even aware of open soure. It looks like GNU med is based in Europe.

My husband is starting up a veterinarian clinic. There are similar windows-based, closed-source software packages available for vet management. What I did with his clinic is set up a network with a linux server and kubuntu desktop and bought a linux-based vet management software program called vet-tux. Vet-tux also uses MySQL, I am not sure if it is completely open source, but it will work well for his clinic and we saved about $11,000 going that route.

I would love for everyone in the medical professions to know that we do not need to be limited by crappy, proprietary, expensive, windows based software. And, if anyone out there like Dr. Niel is working on similar issues we should learn from each other!

You should get a grant to documents the migration of your vet buisness to open-source.

A grant from where? I think we're the only vet office in the United States to use vet-tux.

wow.. interesting thread.
medical IT is in a mess. last night I watched with horror a documentary on the UK NHS database project.
already £60 billion pounds has been spent on this project, and there is NOTHING to show for it.

as for a veterinary database... I could see how some aspects of my openMolar program could easily be adapted.

I will check out gnumed... thanks for the heads up.

and thanks to everyone who enjoyed the show. I was very nervous, and out of my depth talking to real IT professionals. However, I am already benefitting from sticking my neck out, I have had some excellent feedback.
If anyone wants to contact me directly, I am rowinggolfer AT googlemail.com

let's keep the dialog going, and change the world!

python, pyqt, qt and mysql. flipping awesome tools for this type of app.

Good to see you active again. I was going to go back and look at all the old posts on LR, but Chess has killed the forum as he said he would do. There was so much Linux goodness there. Good luck with your quest. We are all rooting for you!

This is the beauty of free and open source software and community. Listening to the TLLTS episode with Neil was awesome, and it exposed me to an area where FOSS has shined that I would have never thought of before. Kudos to you, Neil, for making all of us listeners aware of what you're going through, and I wish njwrightmd the best of luck in his venture with FOSS. Neil is a delight on IRC and on the show...even his wife thinks so! He would be a great resource to turn to in this topic's regard.

Hi,

How do I contact Neil Wallace? I have two web sites that I pulled from the chatlog, but no email address.

• openMolar Download
• Neil Wallace's Team Profile

I'd like to contact him and talk about his project some more.

I am in agreement with rowinggolfer as far as low expectations. With the new economic stimulus bill signed in congress, in the U.S., there is a huge amount of money put aside for the development of electronic medical records. My experience in developing countries has taught me that when there is a lot of money thrown at a problem, the money is not well spent. I think it is more important to gather good people who care about and have a real interest in the problem first, rather than initially focusing on money. Money corrupts.

There's an idea in the U.S. that electronic records will solve a lot of problems. I disagree. I see and receive reports from practices that use electronic records. Good doctors send good reports, electronic or not. Bad docs send crappy reports, electronic or not. Going electronic does not make one a better doctor. My business partner thinks the push for electronic records is a conspiracy to allow insurance companies to assess doctors more easily, ie as a way to deny payment to doctors.

In the past year I have become more interested in Linux. I bought a first generation eee pc and was very impressed with it, although I now realize the original Xandros os is a litte clunky. I am very impressed with my husband's et business computer set-up. Linux systems just feel smoother and more stable. The windows computers I've had just gradually gunk up and die. If I'm going to set up electronic medical records, I definitely do not want a windows system. I don't think windows systems are safe or efficient.

Many of these medical office database software products are pretty much the same. I'm sure there are a number of open source projects out there that incorporate database software products. GNU med is one, there was one called med-tux, I don't think that project is going on any more.

Here are some questions I have:

How does one start to learn python? Did you use online guides or is a book better?

How does the licensing process go? I know laws are different in different countries. I am reading one of Linus Torvalds autobiographies and he was very negative about intellectual property laws. (it's a very fun book though) I would hate to set up a great program in my office, share it with the pediatrics community, and have a windows-like corporation come in and copyright the software out from under me.

What did everyone think of the DOHCS meeting? I wanted to go but heard about it about 3 weeks before it happened. I was worried there wouldn't be very many health professionals there. Is DOHCS doing anything else these days? Do they have a newsletter or anything?

Thanks.

open source electronic medical records s/b open source code for accessing medical records.
Original title is subliminal message that any medical record is open to access legal or not.
Maybe too nit-picky.