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