This is very OT. If list readers can point me in the right direction, to other mailing lists, or web sites for recommended databases, that will be much appreciated!
My wife's doctor wants to move records, for approximately 6000 patients (over a 12 year period), from paper (18th century) to a database (20th century). The data entry will be a PITA, for his secretaries, regardless of what software he goes with. I did some reading about MySQL, and I also did some googling for Linux+database and there are many other databases out there. One requirement is that one field be variable length (patient history: surgeries, treatments, etc.), which I suspect might vary from 200 words to 3000 words. That field size needs to be very flexible. If there are "front ends" that will make it easier for his secretaries to input patient records to the database and access it, that will be a "plus". It would also be a plus, but, it's not mandatory, if they can do this in Spanish. It's a small office (2 surgeons, nurses and secretaries) so I suspect there might be 4 to 6 workstations connected to the database server, maximum. I would like to help him get the best possible solution. Something with a large user base, excellent documentation and an active ML, like CentOS, is the goal. Thanks much! Lanny
If you want to take this offline I'll chat with you further. However, if it's just for in office use I'd look at using CentOS, postgresql (not MYSQL), php, and APACHE. It wouldn't be very hard to throw together an app that would do what you want that is web based.
Of course if he wants a fat client it would be very easy to develop a database structure and use either access as the custom front end or develop a program in your language of choice (java or .net based).
Geoff
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld.
-----Original Message----- From: Lanny Marcus mailing-lists@computer2.com
Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 06:48:54 To:CentOS Mailing List centos@centos.org Subject: [CentOS] OT: Suggestions for database for physicians patient records?
This is very OT. If list readers can point me in the right direction, to other mailing lists, or web sites for recommended databases, that will be much appreciated!
My wife's doctor wants to move records, for approximately 6000 patients (over a 12 year period), from paper (18th century) to a database (20th century). The data entry will be a PITA, for his secretaries, regardless of what software he goes with. I did some reading about MySQL, and I also did some googling for Linux+database and there are many other databases out there. One requirement is that one field be variable length (patient history: surgeries, treatments, etc.), which I suspect might vary from 200 words to 3000 words. That field size needs to be very flexible. If there are "front ends" that will make it easier for his secretaries to input patient records to the database and access it, that will be a "plus". It would also be a plus, but, it's not mandatory, if they can do this in Spanish. It's a small office (2 surgeons, nurses and secretaries) so I suspect there might be 4 to 6 workstations connected to the database server, maximum. I would like to help him get the best possible solution. Something with a large user base, excellent documentation and an active ML, like CentOS, is the goal. Thanks much! Lanny
_______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces@centos.org] On Behalf Of Lanny Marcus Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 7:49 AM To: CentOS Mailing List Subject: [CentOS] OT: Suggestions for database for physicians patientrecords?
This is very OT. If list readers can point me in the right direction, to other mailing lists, or web sites for recommended databases, that will be much appreciated!
My wife's doctor wants to move records, for approximately 6000 patients (over a 12 year period), from paper (18th century) to a database (20th century). The data entry will be a PITA, for his secretaries, regardless of what software he goes with. I did some reading about MySQL, and I also did some googling for Linux+database and there are many other databases out there. One requirement is that one field be variable length (patient history: surgeries, treatments, etc.), which I suspect might vary from 200 words to 3000 words. That field size needs to be very flexible. If there are "front ends" that will make it easier for his secretaries to input patient records to the database and access it, that will be a "plus". It would also be a plus, but, it's not mandatory, if they can do this in Spanish. It's a small office (2 surgeons, nurses and secretaries) so I suspect there might be 4 to 6 workstations connected to the database server, maximum. I would like to help him get the best possible solution. Something with a large user base, excellent documentation and an active ML, like CentOS, is the goal. Thanks much! Lanny
There are numerous systems out there, but what I would look for is more on a document management system then specifically a database.
If it were myself doing this I would look at some way to take a scan of a medical record into PDF with an OCR that will create a PDF text overlay so it can be indexed into a database and become fully searchable.
I saw an OCR engine for Linux, a port of a popular commercial OCR engine, I think it was distributed by Vividata called OCR Shop XTR, it's command-line driven and is designed for working with large batches at once, I think it is around $5K. Combine that with a photocopier that scans into PDFs and dumps it to a samba share which feeds it into the software and after a tuning period you can crank those 6K files into PDFs that can be fully imported into just about any document management system out there.
-Ross
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On Mon, 2007-08-20 at 06:48 -0500, Lanny Marcus wrote:
This is very OT. If list readers can point me in the right direction, to other mailing lists, or web sites for recommended databases, that will be much appreciated!
My wife's doctor wants to move records, for approximately 6000 patients (over a 12 year period), from paper (18th century) to a database (20th century). The data entry will be a PITA, for his secretaries, regardless of what software he goes with. I did some reading about MySQL, and I also did some googling for Linux+database and there are many other databases out there. One requirement is that one field be variable length (patient history: surgeries, treatments, etc.), which I suspect might vary from 200 words to 3000 words. That field size needs to be very flexible. If there are "front ends" that will make it easier for his secretaries to input patient records to the database and access it, that will be a "plus". It would also be a plus, but, it's not mandatory, if they can do this in Spanish. It's a small office (2 surgeons, nurses and secretaries) so I suspect there might be 4 to 6 workstations connected to the database server, maximum. I would like to help him get the best possible solution. Something with a large user base, excellent documentation and an active ML, like CentOS, is the goal. Thanks much! Lanny
You might want to take a look at Vista available at sourceforge and other web locations. It's a complete electronic medical record system that is scalable from hospital type applications down to a doctors' office. Server/database can run on Linux, workstations must run windows, IIRC. Free software developed years ago by Veterans Administration and still actively maintained.
Good luck, B.J.
Ubuntu 7.04 Fiesty, Linux 2.6.20-16-generic unknown 08:19:13 up 1:15, 1 user, load average: 0.04, 0.08, 0.08
Before you go throwing together a solution, you need to check the laws in your state and country. Here in the US there are laws that say how patient data can be stored. There are compliant software packages for Dr's and Hospitals that include everything they need including stuff like medical billing.
Some of the newer systems also support the wireless tablet computers that the Dr's and Nurses carry from room to room.
Just keep in mind, you are handling people's private information, so security is your #1 priority.
-matt
On 8/20/07, Lanny Marcus mailing-lists@computer2.com wrote:
This is very OT. If list readers can point me in the right direction, to other mailing lists, or web sites for recommended databases, that will be much appreciated!
My wife's doctor wants to move records, for approximately 6000 patients (over a 12 year period), from paper (18th century) to a database (20th century). The data entry will be a PITA, for his secretaries, regardless of what software he goes with. I did some reading about MySQL, and I also did some googling for Linux+database and there are many other databases out there. One requirement is that one field be variable length (patient history: surgeries, treatments, etc.), which I suspect might vary from 200 words to 3000 words. That field size needs to be very flexible. If there are "front ends" that will make it easier for his secretaries to input patient records to the database and access it, that will be a "plus". It would also be a plus, but, it's not mandatory, if they can do this in Spanish. It's a small office (2 surgeons, nurses and secretaries) so I suspect there might be 4 to 6 workstations connected to the database server, maximum. I would like to help him get the best possible solution. Something with a large user base, excellent documentation and an active ML, like CentOS, is the goal. Thanks much! Lanny
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Before you go throwing together a solution, you need to check the laws in your state and country. Here in the US there are laws that say how patient data can be stored. There are compliant software packages for Dr's and Hospitals that include everything they need including stuff like medical billing.
Some of the newer systems also support the wireless tablet computers that the Dr's and Nurses carry from room to room.
Just keep in mind, you are handling people's private information, so security is your #1 priority.
-matt
Absolutely correct. In addition, the cost/overhead of running this all in-house for such a small office doesn't necessarily make sense. It would be beneficial to look at online services that do exactly this. In most cases access is through a light weight Win32 client, or simply a browser.
-ken
Lanny Marcus wrote:
This is very OT. If list readers can point me in the right direction, to other mailing lists, or web sites for recommended databases, that will be much appreciated!
take a look at that, I've seen smallish Private practices to 400 bed hospitals running that recently.
- KB
Lanny Marcus wrote:
This is very OT. If list readers can point me in the right direction, to other mailing lists, or web sites for recommended databases, that will be much appreciated!
My wife's doctor wants to move records, for approximately 6000 patients (over a 12 year period), from paper (18th century) to a database (20th century). The data entry will be a PITA, for his secretaries, regardless of what software he goes with. I did some reading about MySQL, and I also did some googling for Linux+database and there are many other databases out there. One requirement is that one field be variable length (patient history: surgeries, treatments, etc.), which I suspect might vary from 200 words to 3000 words. That field size needs to be very flexible. If there are "front ends" that will make it easier for his secretaries to input patient records to the database and access it, that will be a "plus". It would also be a plus, but, it's not mandatory, if they can do this in Spanish. It's a small office (2 surgeons, nurses and secretaries) so I suspect there might be 4 to 6 workstations connected to the database server, maximum. I would like to help him get the best possible solution. Something with a large user base, excellent documentation and an active ML, like CentOS, is the goal. Thanks much! Lanny
I'm not sure of your location, but if you're in the US, you need to make sure the solution is HIPPA compliant or you could find yourself in hot water later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIPPA
Best,
-
B.J. McClure -
Chris Mauritz -
gjgowey＠tmo.blackberry.net -
Karanbir Singh -
Ken Price -
Lanny Marcus -
Matt Shields -
Ross S. W. Walker