Agenda Minutes 2
Board of Directors Meeting (telephone conference)
AGENDA
Open Source Medical Software
Friday, January 22, 2006 at 5 p.m.(EST):
1. Call to order
2. Additions to agenda
4. Receive resignation of Lisa Killian and Cornelia Kurth from Board of Directors
5. Go over financial and organizational status
- Form 1023 - John Rehberg CPA
- Donations
- Grants
- Pat Sanchez - Women's Health Initiative, Sante Fe, New Mexico
- Forrest Toms
- Faye Cobb Payton, PhD,
- Review proposed budget
6. Software Development
- PHP 5
- MySQL 5
- FreeB 2 integration with OpenEMR
- Cosmetic appearance
- Web Designer - Thomas Yueh
- Frames
- CSS
- Color Scheme Selection
- SVN vs CVS
- Database coding standards (foreign keys, etc.)
- Forms
7. New Board Members
- Accounting
- Legal
- Fund raising
- Proposed new board members should bring something to the table that is not computer programming. We need other skills to make the board more effective productive.
8. Comments period
9. Adjourn
Board of Directors Meeting (telephone conference)
AGENDA
Open Source Medical Software
Friday, January 22, 2006 at 5 p.m.(EST):
1. Call to order
2. Additions to agenda
4. Receive resignation of Lisa Killian and Cornelia Kurth from Board of Directors
Lisa Killian, Emily Killian and Cornelia Kurth helped set up the company initially and served as interim board of directors to get things started. They were not very interested in Open Source Medical Software or oemr.org and have gratefully passed on their official duties to Rod Roark, Andres Paglayan and James Perry.
5. Go over financial and organizational status
Rod Roark has assumed the duties of secretary, Andres Paglayan has assumed the duties of treasurer, and James Perry has assumed the duties of the Vice Chair.
- Form 1023 - John Rehberg CPA
John Rehberg is a CPA that I know in Hickory. He has a background in programming and is interested in SQL-Ledger as a potential tool in his CPA business. He has been helping me with the IRS form 1023. He has agreed tentatively to write an official opinion supporting our application for 501(c)(3) tax exempt status. He has been performing this free of charge.
- Donations
We have all felt the need for some real funding to help with the overall organizational goals. Rod Roark has requested consideration of starting the fund raising before receiving the tax exempt status. I am in favor of this if we make it clear that these contributions are not yet fully deductible. (Contributions are deductible for state taxes in North Carolina).
- Grants
- Pat Sanchez - Women's Health Initiative, Sante Fe, New Mexico
- Forrest Toms
- Faye Cobb Payton, PhD,
http://www4.ncsu.edu:8030/%7Efcpayton/index.html
Grants are time consuming and can be quite lengthy to obtain. While I am planning to pursue grants as an avenue of funding the process may be beyond the time I have available.
Pat Sanchez is the fund raiser that works with Andres Paglayan at the Women's Health Initiative in Sante Fe. I will be speaking with Pat Sanchez to find out her ideas in the near future. Someone with her skills would be an excellent prospective board member.
Forrest Toms is another acquaintance of mine in Hickory. He is a consultant interested improving cultural competence. I have had ongoing discourse Mr. Toms since before the idea of creating this company. He is interested in the ethnic tracking available in OpenEMR and the potential to use a product like OpenEMR to help improve cultural competence in medical practices.
Mr. Toms has important contacts among funding organizations in North Carolina and in the federal government. He has contacts at Glaxo-Burroughs-Wellcome Foundation and the Bureau of Primary Care in DC. He is interested in introducing me to these contacts so that we can further each others goals.
I have not met or spoken with Faye Cobb Payton, PhD. I have her name through a mutual contact. She is an associate professor at North Carolina State University. Her research is primarily on Electronic Health Records, data mining, and the “glass ceiling” affecting females in the computer science – information technology field.
If she would be interested in working with us, she can bring some skills to the table that we currently do not have. Her interests would fit in nicely with our project plus as a professor at NCSU she will have grant writing resources that we currently do not have.
Faye Payton may have interest in expert systems and decision support as requested by Innocuous or at least know who is interested at NCSU. No one has every really measured the impact of introducing EHRs into an area and measuring changes in outcomes based on that introduction. This seems like a very interesting project for a post-doc or two.
It is possible that getting connected with Dr. Payton could get us additional quality programmers to add features to OpenEMR.
- Review proposed budget
I created a proposed budget with the assistance of John Rehberg that I can send as an attachment. I used the real figures of a small start-up service company on which to base the figures.
6. Software Development
- PHP 5
- MySQL 5
A conversion from PHP4 to PHP5 (and possibly MySQL 4 to MySQL 5) needs to occur. My understanding from Peter Walter is that what he intends to do with OpenEMR v. 3.0 (alpha) is make this type conversion occur. I think I can assist with this by working on the Clinical modules (forms).
I would like to import OpenEMR 2.8.x to a server running the new configuration and convert the cvs to svn.
- FreeB 2 integration with OpenEMR
This has been discussed several times in the past. The issue has been raised in the forums again by Sankar. I would like to hear an update on this. This will likely include an update from Andres on the X12 progress.
I have a strong personal conviction that we should have a Practice Management module that is an integral part of OpenEMR. General Accounting is generally handled by an outside accounting program such as SQL-Ledger, QuickBooks, Peachtree and others. The accounting program is usually chosen by the practice accountant.
Cobbling together two separate systems such as OpenEMR and SQL-Ledger makes for a difficult installation. This type of one interface is generally looked down upon by medical managers and makes the “sale” of OpenEMR to these practices a lot more difficult. Trying to talk the accountant out of his favorite general accounting program just worsens the task.
- Cosmetic appearance
- Web Designer - Thomas Yueh
- Frames
- CSS
- Color Scheme Selection
Rod Roark has met resistance from a number of potential users because of the appearance of OpenEMR. He feels that a “face lift” would help improve his ability to sell OpenEMR to clients.
Thomas Yueh is another acquaintance of mine. Thomas is a professional artist and web designer. He has a number of specialized programs for this purpose and has offered to help me with a face lift of OpenEMR. He has agreed to do this on a volunteer basis.
- SVN vs CVS
There does not appear to be a big pressing need to try to convert from CVS to SVN especially if SourceForge is going to convert to SVN in the near future.
I would like to use SVN to get used to its management so that if we do need to switch to SVN this transiiton will be easier.
- Database coding standards (foreign keys, etc.)
- Forms
Since I am planning to convert the forms to PHP5 I would welcome any pointers or criticisms to make sure am conforming to coding standards.
7. New Board Members
- Accounting
- Legal
- Fund raising
- Proposed new board members should bring something to the table that is not computer programming. We need other skills to make the board more effective productive.
We don't have any prospective new board members. However, for our organization to have a strong effective board it can not exist with programmers - developers only. We need a combination of professional expertise such as accounting, legal, grant writing – fund raisers.
8. Comments period
9. Adjourn
