[Gnumed-devel] Re: [GPCG_TALK] GPs split on software ads

[Horst Herb]

On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 09:38, Tim Churches wrote:
> Initial investigations by Brendan Scott, David Guest and myself suggest
> that it is likely that a properly configured non-profit R&D foundation
> dedicated to open source health software development would receive
> approval for tax-deductible status from the ATO.

My own research suggests that the costs of running a not-for-profit 
organization in Australia (all fees, levies, duties, mandatory audits etc.) 
are just atrocious.

I talked to somebody from Greenpeace and he told me running costs of 
Greenpeace in Australia due to administrative fees imposed on them by the 
government are among the highest world wide.

If we had accountants etc. working pro bono, the compliance costs would still 
be high (and the amount of paperwork nauseating) but bearable. But who would 
know an accountant working for gnumed for free?

> However, there is still a HUGE amount of work to be done before GnuMed
> is ready for production use. The GnuMed team is still wrestling with
> (and iterating over) the design of fundamental aspects of the programme.
> Version 0.1, with a full working GUI, is yet to be released.

You forget one minor but important detail: I *am* using gnumed-mini daily in 
my practice and it does most things. I have taken many shortcuts (almost no 
documentation in the code, nowhere near as elegantly designed as 
gnumed-proper), and the database is not properly normalized (and often I 
still just leech onto the medibase database) but I reckon it is less than 3 
weeks full time work to make it work for others too 

(meaning you can add, view, edit, delete demographic information, add and view 
simple progress nodes, code diagnoses and associate them with progress notes, 
record and browse family and social histories and risk factors, record and 
browse a few observations, import, comment and browse pathology results, and, 
view and administrate simple recalls, prescribe medication incl. viewing 
context sensitive reference information, browse medication history. If we 
integrate Carlos' SOAP editor (currently I am just using a plain text 
widget), and already existing/working modules like vaccinations and document 
archival, we have something useful already.

It needs refining alright, and has lots of aesthetic warts (Richard will 
cringe and turn green), but I do manage with it in my own practice day to 
day.

Horst