mbrody wrote on Thursday, December 17, 2009:
We are moving very nicely towards certification and I think it is time for some serious discussion regarding how that will be ‘managed’ once accomplished.
It is anticipated that developers of ‘certified’ software will need to inform the federal government who is a user of the certified software. That means we will need to track all users of the ‘Certified’ version of OpenEMR and we will be responsible for verifying to the Federal Govt that those people are eligible for the incentive payment.
This is no small responsibility.
It is complicated by the nature of ‘OpenSource Software’.
I propose the following: In order to be registered as a user of the Certified Version of OpenEMR, a user will be required to purchase an installation CD from the Open Source Foundation for a fee of $1000.00. This will have NO impact on the ability of anybody to download the software, but we will only be able to certify that people who purchased the CD actually have the certified version. That money could then be used for future development costs, future re-certification costs etc.
Basically they are purchasing registration, and we are giving the CD away to insure that they have a certified copy of the software.
Remember managing and reporting who has the certified software will cost us in terms of time and $.
Michael