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U.S. Government Crafted OSS
matthewg writes "According to the New York Times the federal government has developed an open-source medical records system. It was originally developed for the Department of Veterans Affairs, and doctors started obtaining it under FOIA requests. Some good information on the process of converting it from an internal project to a deployable system exists, and how its open nature has made the system better is available at the WorldVista site." From the article: "Medicare has not estimated what its software giveaway is worth. But Duncan Pringle, chief Vista technologist at Perot Systems, said that each doctor in a practice paid about $20,000 to $25,000 to get started with a commercial system, including costs of software, a license fee charged to each doctor, installation and servicing."
So we can agree that the word "Vista" is the only reason this story is here, right?
I'm starting to think this isn't the best place to promote my Anti-Sig Campaign.
the ridiculous premiums doctors have to pay in malpractice insurance as the court system does virtually nothing to stem the tide of bogus malpractice claims.
Seriously, I think this is great, but the government needs to do a bit more to help our medical professionals as certain states (like WV) are having to close down trauma centers because doctors can't meet the $200,000 a year insurance premiums
U.S. Government Crafted OSS
Let's not forget that the Government was doing OSS before OSS existed. The Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) was funded by DARPA during the creation of the Internet. Due to the rules behind government funding, the BSD Operating System (it was originally just some tools) was released free to the public.
It makes sense if you think about it. Public funds are going into making the software. So who should own the design? The public, of course! Entities like NASA have the same requirements, save for when NASA pays third parties to do the development (in which case the developer owns the rights).
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
based upon open source software... so it should absolutely be available to the public.
now, if you can tell me anything that should be MORE open source than this, I don't know what it is. Its based on GPL software and developed with my tax dollars. Hells yeah, I should get a copy of this as a US citizen and taxpayer.
I know that there are some very good medical records software pacakages out there... either they innovate or they die. Meaning, either they go to work, work and make their software better, or they die.
That sounds pretty much like why i go to work every day.... i don't see why software developers should get a free pass.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Overall, this sounds like a pretty good deal for just about everyone except the proprietary software vendors. Does anyone here really think the proprietary software vendors will let this stand? I am willing to bet said vendors either a) lobby congress to pass a bill banning Medicare from providing this software or b) sue the government under a 'no compete' clause.
Paranoid tinfoil hat crowd say Y here, everyone else say N.
I will wager that part of the costs mentioned in the article were for installation, integration, and support. Which means the MDs still have to pay, and we IT-people have an opportunity!
Yeah, but try invoicing them and collecting. Doctors are the only clients slower to pay than lawyers.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Sooner or later, the Big Dollar Software Industry will sneak a little-noticed provision into some bill that will require the government to either buy commercial software or give vendors a chance to "underbid" custom software before the gov't develops its own, at least for big projects.
Furthermore, The Industry will make sure that if the government does make any of its own software, it must either not release it or charge more than industry does for similar solutions.
At least that's how I see The Industry spending it's lobbying dollars.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I want to see if it will build on Mandrake 10.2.
Seriously, is this REALLY open source?
If my tax dollars paid for it's development, I want source...
(Visualizing nice canned preconfigured Linux or Mac boxes for Doctors offices///healthcare facilities)
I worked for two years in the medical records department of a large university medical campus environment and I never met a single doctor who liked any of the many different computerized systems used in the various departments across the campus or in the attached clinics and hospitals. Basically they were all unhappy about having to learn how to use the system and fought it tooth and nail, thus never learning it well. The only ones that were at all happy about the computerized systems were the ones who had very good secretaries and nurses who did all their computer work for them. "Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a computer tech!"
Even where I live now, in a different country that has a national health care system, every time I have a doctor's appointment, they're OK with swiping my card across the reader at the beginning, but they all have sour faces and bang on the keyboard with two fingers as they fill out the necessary forms. I've been here 8 years and never yet saw a doctor who was comfortable with the system. And I've seen doctors of all ages from quite a number of different countries, India, Russia, Canada, South Africa, Australia, France, England, Cuba, and they all react in the same way.
As the guy who manages GT.M, let me assert that the licensing of GT.M as released on Source Forge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/sanchez-gtm) is GPL.
There is very little of GT.M that is written in assembler, but since GT.M is a compiler, the code generator is the real obstacle to portability. The assembler bits are mostly there to do things like manipulate stack frames, which a run time system needs to do.
Feel free to contact me at ks dot bhaskar at fnf dot com if you have any questions on this.
Ada is not really a 'wacky' programming language, just not as common. The language itself is quite sensable and manageable. It was designed to be a robust language as well as encourage robust code. When you have mission criticle situations where programming / code errors are not an option, then what else will you use? C? C++? Perl? They couldn't find an acceptable solution so they came up with their own (keep in mind this language was first drafted over 20 years ago).
I don't much like Ada myself, but it has as many pro's and cons as any other language. With features such as concurrent execution and very good exeption handling built into the language, I don't think they had much of a choice considering only recently have those two things really recieved much attention from modern languages.
My girlfriend is a doctor. She isn't big on computers either, but she loves the fact that systems like these enables her to look at images, keep tabs on patients and review patient information from home. It probably doesn't hurt that I solve the tech support problems for her...