Site Bugs and Improvements

[jcahn]

Ahoy Brady.

Anonymity is OK by me (as long as my name is spelled correctly ) .

Your piece comes at open source form the control and finance angles and that complements mine.

Thanks, Jack

[Aethelwulffe]

I'd stick to single exclamation points and non-repetitive sales pitches.
For a professional sales presentation, I would let the testimonials, editorials, and white papers speak for themselves without slogans or catch phrases. I would simply make sure that the formatting/framing made the text attractive and easily read.

For that nuts and bolts first impression and interest builder (perhaps on the Open-emr site) I have started working on a pitch that uses active elements (video or whatever) to show features of the EMR in bubbles that pop up, fade in and out around the central logo item of OpenEMR. The central item fades in and out (leaving the logo as a watermark) with slogans like "open source works for you" and other quips like "Hospitals", "Sports Clinics", "Specialists Clinics", "Free Clinics", "Rural Practices", "Any size", "Any Language", "Any Country", "Any One", "For Free", "Forever". The satellite bubbles display mini-videos of the EMR in use interspersed with statements (Not up to that part yet actually) like "ONC Certified", "ICD-10 Ready", "5010 Ready" (currently a lie) etc...

....I actually started working on this one already but...
Maybe no-one will like it, but I am kinda building it as an engine rather than as some impress or powerpoint document so that I can do some really cool stuff. I figured a video like that would be nice at a convention table. This let's me edit and add a wider range of elements to a final video, such as 3d stuff etc...

I wanna make a little cartoon as well. I figure it will be a line drawing or maybe a 3d video with caricature doctors walking into a room yakking to each other (Blah-Blah-Blah bubbles) as one doctor holds up his ID badge to a computer monitor in the foreground. A line laser out of the monitor scans him, then an arm reaches out of the monitor and hands the doctor a clip board. He takes it without halting his conversation or looking back as the doctors leave the room, finishing with "OpenEMR, why not make it easy on yourself?"

[brady]

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback. As an aside, from a physicians perpective, we are a cynical group; testimonials bring visions of docs that treat all ailments as lyme disease or cure cancer with ginseng, editorials from anything except high-ranked journals are suspicious, and white papers are what is used to keep patient rooms sanitary

On Jack's FAQ, if gonna place this at the Open Source? link, would:
1) remove the first sentence ("A practicing family physician's FAQ for clinicians and office managers (the geeks know this stuff).")
2) Consider changing OpenOffice example to LibreOffice
3) To be more realistic about downloads per day, would put 125 (in "How do I know OpenEMR.." section)

Also, very interested in seeing your (Art's) graphical sales pitch stuff. (Sorry, I keep editing my message). Nice way to incorporate or try this stuff out is to fork this github repo, which holds the open-emr.org site (it's GPL'd):
http://github.com/bradymiller/website-openemr

-brady

[jcahn]

Thanks Brady. I can do those. I feel like the Windows OS release "OpenOffice" would have better name recognition in the world of docs which seems to be about 90% Windows users, 9% Mac users, and me the 1% using LibreOffice. Jack

[Aethelwulffe]

Um,....
OpenOffice is yesterday.
The "Real" OpenOffice is LibreOffice. Java downloads/updates used to pitch OpenOffice, but now it is Libre. OpenOffice is now the fork of the notorious corporate underworld.

I agree that testimonials are a shitty way to try to sell anything to folks, at least to anyone that doesn't listen to Rush Limbaugh. Personally I would avoid quoting any testimonials, reviews etc... I WOULD link to or otherwise provide an interface for reviews, but only if they were completely unmoderated (anyone post anything they want). Nothing promotes confidence in a cynic like a near illiterate posting bad press using greengrocer apostrophes and phrases like "Yur progm is being junk. Cudnt' get it two wordk an I gots a badazz compuder." That's the main reason I would rather that Jack's write-up would include his name, as well as a disclaimer about his involvement in OEMR. It shouldn't be seen as a testimonial, but more like a conversation with the reader.
Brady, I'll leave GIT to you. I'll provide the file...

[brady]

Hi,

Regarding authorship issues, it depends what you plan to use the page for. If agree with making this the only content of the Open Source? link, which is what I'm suggesting, then comes off stronger with no author (ie. it's an official document published onto the OEMR site for the community). If gonna turn into an editorial etc, then keeping authorship makes sense. I think this FAQ is strong enough to be the only content on the Open Source? link since it addresses the main issue of gaining acceptance for open source EMR's by physicians.

I think the next logical steps to address (if allow this FAQ to be the initial stepping stone) are gonna be showing where to find quality OpenEMR support and to provide a factual listing of other clinics that are successfully using OpenEMR.

Regarding git, you are totally missing out. Note that we have about 100 users that have forked OpenEMR via git on github. Git has super accelerated development progress in OpenEMR. If I could, I'd have git filter my water, make my food, and provide my healthcare; but git still can't do this stuff yet... (also, if you simply provide me the file, there's a large inertia for me to cross (I need to download, unzip, place in repo, then test), however if you provide your online git branch/commit, it only take me 10 seconds to download, test, commit, and push it to the production site).

-brady

[jcahn]

Ahoy Shameem,
Can you add anything to the FAQ that specifically addresses billing, reports, clearinghouses, etc in the open source realm? In particular, fears you have addressed from potential clients that made them hesitate about using OpenEMR because of the open source model? Jack

[drbowen]

For starters I think think thread really deserves its own thread starting from where Brady posted about the emrandhippa.com comment above.

I have been thinking this one over for a few days. To me this is more than just an FAQ. The FAQ is the "bullet points" of a much larger essay. This is about total cost of ownership, what are the factors involved in choosing an EHR and what is important to the decision maker.

1) ROI - what is "Return On Investment?" Is the vendor spinning the ROI to make his make product look enhanced. Are the assumptions in the ROI calculation valid? Are they valid in the decision makers environment?

2) Acceptance by practitioners - What is the real acceptance rate. Current large vendor products run 17-50% acceptance. OpenEMR runs 92%. Why is this so different? The commercial vendors should not be very proud of these numbers.

3) Recidivism - The national recidivism rate is 17%. This is another shocking number. Why is it that 17% of practices hate their chosen product so much that want to throw it in the digital scrapheap and go through the pain of selecting a new product and starting the pain all over again.

4) Hospital supplied EHR - Is free really worth it? The hospital gives you an EHR for "free." What does this cost the hospital in physician good will if it doesn't work out? What does it cost the practice if two doctors get so mad they want to leave the practice?

5) Vendor Lock-in - Once you choose it is very difficult to change with your data intact. Point-and-click menu choices in particular are difficult to switch over to a new product. Most of the time you can import demographics and financial data. But the EHR itself will be difficult. For accounts that means very expensive (or impossible) to convert. When you choose a proprietary product there may be only and usually is only one vendor to choose from. What happens if you really hate the vendor. They're sloppy, careless, don't listen, whatever etc. To change in this situation means going to a completely new product with all the attendant exorbitant expense.

With open source systems such as OpenEMR there are a lot of vendors. The maintenance of OpenEMR is so easy all you need is a competent IT vendor. Even in my town of 35,000 there are dozens of qualified IT vendors who could maintain my OpenEMR instance. OpenEMR is so portable literally any vendor, anywhere, in the entire US, can do this. You can even have your maintenance down internationally if that is what you wish.

6) Sun Setting - How many times have you been faced with software that is being phased out by your vendor. As a practical example, I have a billing system that my practice has been using for years and years. Its paid for, lighting fast, and my staff is highly expert in its use. The vendor got bought out, and that vendor got bought out, and that vendor got bought out. Now the old DOS based program is owned by a fortune 500 behemoth that doesn't even know that it owns the program. Enter the US Federal government. They are requiring ICD-10 and X12. Man, am I happy about that. Now my program won't do either, the clock is ticking and there is no way the current owner will find it cost effective to fix my problem. This is the problem of "sun setting."

With OpenEMR I engage a small, quick, lively company to fix the issues I need with OpenEMR and "Voilà!" I am suddenly sleeping nights again. This is one the great advantages of open source software. If the most dire situation occurs, the Feds change your way of doing business, your most important software suddenly can't be used anymore, what do you do. In open source software, you just modify the program to meet the new need. The modification of the per-existing open source software is usually a lot cheaper than buying a new product. Plus you avoid the issue of retraining your staff entirely. This simply can not be done with proprietary software and it is actually illegal to try.

I will add more to this.

Please consider moving this to its own thread.

Sam Bowen, MD

[drbowen]

I published Jack's Country Doc FAQ:

http://www.oemr.org/FAQ_Open_Source_Software

I published my nascent article here:

http://www.oemr.org/Advantages_of_Open_Source_Software

These may not be "well crafted" but I am more of a Tony style rapid prototyper. Hopefully you guys can feed me additional information to add.

Sam Bowen, MD

[drbowen]

I added some of the header information that Brady wrote above.

Sam Bowen, MD