Oemr.org and Drupal

drbowen wrote on Thursday, July 28, 2011:

Members of this project have been accusing me of acting rashly and independently without regard to the users in the this forum.  It was Rod Roark’s idea to use the www.oemr.org domain as the project home page in 2005.  Rod purchased the original oemr.org domain name and donated it to the OEMR non-profit.  None of the developers and board members would step up to the plate and take on the duty of web master.  I took on this duty in October 2005.  I wrote a grant on behalf of Open Source Medical Software for $2,500.  The proceeds of this grant were used to purchase the current web server.  I have personally for all of the Internet connectivity, air conditioning, power, and server rack space.    Oemr.org is the web page that was placed by  the administrators of this project on the summary page at SourceForge six years ago.   Oemr.org IS the project web page and has been since 2005.

The OpenEMR project is a loose nebulous group that meets in cyberspce and otherwise has no legal existence.  The group does  actually meets periodically, in real time, face-to-face, in public no less.   These meetings are announced in advance and all participants in this project are invited.  If project members would take the time to do this it would be much appreciated by all and your understanding of the OpenEMR project would be much improved.  A group of 14 OpenEMR project members met at the FOSS-Healthcare meeting in July, 2011.  There was a round table discussion about XOOPS.  The only two project members who had every really bothered to learn XOOPs were Brady Miller and Sam Bowen while multiple project members have deep experience with Drupal including Rod Roark, Tony McCormick, Julia Longtin, Jason Brooks, Jeremy Wallace, Shameem Hameed and others.  Julia Longtin proposed a plan which was quickly agreed upon by the group.

The plan was to switch the http://www.oemr.org/ content from XOOPS to MediaWiki.  MediaWiki is a best in class wiki application that runs “Wikipedia”.  This first part of the plan was completed in the fall of 2009 by Julia Longtin, Brady Miller, and Jason Brooks.  The second part of the plan was to switch the content back from MediWiki to Drupal.  This switch back to Drupal is not capricious or sudden.  It was a well conceived plan that was brought up on this thread in December 2010 to remind the readers of these pages what the goals were.  At that time the major objection was that the project did not have the manpower to do this.  I took on this task myself after obtaining approval from Tony McMcCormick, Greg Neuman, Ron Beardon, Art Eaton, Shameem Hameed, Jason Brooks, Jeremy Wallace, and others.   The switch was accomplished with Jason Brooks and the assistance of three other board members.  This is how this an open source project works.  One guy gets inspired, announces what the plan is, and then jumps in and does it by him or herself.   The OEMR board discussed this in the last meeting and agreed on this plan.  The change from the XOOPS content manager to the Drupal content manager was made in full view of this project and with the permission of the OEMR board of directors.  I was just executing the plan that was laid out by Tony McCormick, Julia Longtin, and twelve other members of this project.

MRSB, LLC has been a silent but major financial backer of this project.  It was MRSB that finally achieved the 501©(3) tax exempt status.  The initial five members of the OEMR board were Greg Neuman (MRSB), Ron Beardon (MRSB), Tony McCormick (MI-Squared), Sena Palanasami (Visolve) and David Herman (Accountant).  The last Board meeting of OEMR was July 14th 2011.  The board currently consists of 10 members.

The current members of the board of directors are:

Ron Bearden, Chair (Finance, Banking and non-computer guy, MRSB)
Dr. Sam Bowen, Executive Director (Provider, User)
Tony McCormick, Secretary (Vendor, Developer, Integrator, Manager MI-Squared)
Gregory W. Neuman, Treasurer (attorney and non-computer user, MRSB)
David Herman, Jr. (accountant, non-computer guy)
Sena Palanisami, (Development, contributor, Principle of Visolve)
Jack Cahn, MD (Physician, end user)
Shameem C Hameed  (Vendor, Developer, Integrator, Principle of ZH Healthcare)
Art Eaton (aethelwulffe, open source advocate)
Nathan DeNiro (code-for-health project, open source advocate)

The current composition of the board reflects the major financial backing of these companies.  Per the suggestion of Rod Roark we still need more just regular users who are neither developers nor vendors to be on the board and we are actively seeking this type of membership.  (We would extend one seat to Ensoftek based on their level of commitment to this project).  Brady Miller would also be welcome if he could attend the meetings.

The goals of OEMR are:

1) Raise money for the OpenEMR project to pay for infrastructure changes that private clients simply will not pay for.

2) Promote OpenEMR throughout the US and Worldwide.

3) Maintain high quality software that is functional easy to use and provide this at no cost to the end user.

4) Educate end users on the value and use of OpenEMR.

5) Maintain ONC Meaningful Use certification of the OpenEMR software.

During the same board meeting we agreed to allow advertising on the OEMR site in order to raise the money necessary for further software development such as a much needed refactoring of the database. OEMR has been setting up Public Private Partnerships with these same goals in mind.

The following companies have made major investments (over $200,000 per company) in the completion of the Meaningful Use project:

Visolve
MI-Squared
ZH Healthcare Services
Ensoftek
Bowen Primary & Urgent Care
MRSB, LLC

The estimated cost of the completion of the Meaningful Use project is over $2 Million dollars.  This did not come about by accident.  It took a lot of work by the board members in terms of recruiting these companies and keeping them committed to this project.  To the arm chair quarterbacks, I has  been studying non-profits and how to fund them intensely the way most of study the code.  I have been flying on a regular basis to Portland Oregon, Houston, Texas and San Jose, California to meet with the board members persoally.  I have been doing this at my own expense relay my findings and recommendation personally to the Board.  MRSB also has deep experience in the operation of not-for-profits.  These suggestions on raising money, fund raising and public-private partnerships are being made by experts in non-for-profit management.  There is nothing wrong or improper about any of the these plans. 

The board, does not feel the current SourceForge forums meet the needs of the regular users of the OpenEMR software.  (The ones who struggle with turning on their computers).   As has been mentioned many times, the search function on SourceForge is abysmal.  Whether the current developers forum meets the needs of the developers is much debated in these forums.  The only major proponents appear to be Rod, Brady and tvas,  but there is no clear consensus at this time.  Since nobody seems to be wowed by the forum on oemr.org I removed the offending link off the front page of oemr.org.  I did miss one link yesterday but I was in an area of very poor reception and thought I had gotten them all.

This project’s most important asset is the web traffic being generated off oemr.org, the wiki, and the SourceForge Forums.  Splitting this web traffic between three different locations, all with separate logins is wasteful of this most precious resource.  The board has recommended consolidating the www.oemr.org and wiki into one resource.  This is a continuation of the plan worked at the Houston meeting in 2009  and approved by the board of directors.  It is my opinion and the opinion of the Board that it is the best interest of this project to consolidate all of the resources together into one unified whole.

Large projects do not stay on SourceForge, primarily because the tools available here are too limited.  The move to MediaWiki for the wiki was a very positive one.  Thanks Julia!  The move to Github was another move to a superior project management repository.  Thanks to Steven Boyd-Smith. The current GitHub repository integrators are Rod Roark, Tony McCormick, Brady Miller, and Steven Boyd-Smith.  We have now completed the move to the new web page by consensus with this project and with the Board of Directors to a nice modern Drupal content management site.  We have a professional artist and web designer working on sprucing up the looks of this web page at this time.  We have a professional sysadmin helping to maintain and manage the oemr.org web site.  The only tool missing in the arsenal of this project is a feature rich forum such as phpBB as suggested by Art Eaton.  We are clearly outgrowing SourceForge.

In summary, the move from the old XOOPS content management system to the new Drupal content management system is the culmination of a two year plan by the membership of this project under the direction of the project Board of Directors.  It is part of a systematic plan to increase the strength of this project.

Sam Bowen, MD
http://www.oemr.org

tmccormi wrote on Thursday, July 28, 2011:

This mission was originally part of the OSMS boards mission.  That organization was never able to get 501c3 status so OEMR was formed to take of the OpenEMR part of the mission to keep OpenEMR thriving. 

Nothing has been done in secret, nothing ever will be done in secret.   The board meeting minutes for OSMS and for OEMR are posted for all to read on the wiki.    The by laws and other documents can be found here: http://www.oemr.org/wiki/OEMR_Official_Documents.   The discussions about the new web site were posted here.  Feedback was given and adjustments are being made as fast as resources allow.

The common terminology used to describe a 501©(3) entity that promotes and supports a community for a given project is called “governance” or sometimes “Custodial Agent”.  I actually prefer the second one as it’s more about taking care of the needs of the community than directing it.   I will endeavor to use that term in the future.

OEMR takes care of the needs of this community by providing servers for the website, wiki as well as being a legal entity that can be contracted with.  ICSA labs requires this as do many organizations that are willing to contribute funds. 

Rod:  You talk about forking the community project like that is something new.  Phyaura did it already and got it certified, so have many other vendors.  It just makes OpenEMR better as they all give back to the community in the end.  You are free to fork your version of OpenEMR and call is SunsetSystemsEMR if you desire.  That is what Open Source is all about.

-Tony

drbowen wrote on Thursday, July 28, 2011:

Art, the recommendation to use Drupal came originally from Rod.  This was later echoed by Julia Longtin and Tony McCormick.  I have been left holding the bag for years by people who promise me they are going to help after recommending their favorite whiz-bang project.  I tried to develop the largest consensus I could find before making this switch. 

The XOOPS page was only being maintained by Brady and myself.  It has not been maintained in two years since this plan was hatched in Houston.

Sam Bowen, MD

drbowen wrote on Thursday, July 28, 2011:

For those are lurking out there, Brady and Rod are threatening privately to fork the project to open-emr.org.  This domain name is conveniently owned by Rod Roark.

This project is not a legal entity and cannot contract with the Federal Government, e-prescription companies of various sorts, or laboratory companies either.  As an example: this project cannot maintain a federally certified software program.  The owner of the certified OpenEMR is OEMR.  The oemr.org domain name is owned by the 501©(3) non-profit OEMR. 

All of our meetings prior to the formation of OEMR are published as Open Source Medical Software and are the wiki.  Rod Roark figured very prominently in all of these meetings and seemed to be very content(?) to pass rules and regulations while he was meeting with this group.

Subsequent meetings of the non-profit OEMR are published on the wiki as well.

Well.  I am very apt at starting flame wars and not being able to put them out.  That is why I try to avoid posting here.  The current admins do not respect my opinion very much.  For such an “open source project” I get told to shut up a lot but you know, the “Benevolent Dictator” is definitely a well respected open source model.  I never get the feeling that they ever read my posts and given the whole thread posted above I don’t think they read the publicly posted minutes either.

Sam Bowen, MD

sunsetsystems wrote on Thursday, July 28, 2011:

Drupal is a tool for building web sites.  I personally love it and use it myself.  However we are objecting to the content of the site insofar as it claims to represent the OpenEMR project, not about the tools used to build it.

The oemr.org domain name was donated to OEMR.org because of the name identity.  That in no way implies a license for the nonprofit to take over the project, and in fact I’ve repeatedly pointed out the fact that they are distinctly separate.

Vendor neutrality is a core value for the software project, as is open source itself.  The advertising has no place on the project’s web site.

Cost of hosting: SourceForge gives us all the essentials for free, and I am also willing to donate hosting services if otherwise needed.  We don’t want anyone doing that if it’s a big imposition.

Sorry if I missed some other point germane to the discussion, but trying to take in all of the above is giving me a headache.

Rod
www.sunsetsystems.com

sunsetsystems wrote on Thursday, July 28, 2011:

Completely untrue that Brady or I threatened forking.  The point was that if OEMR.org continues to abuse the project, then we cannot use oemr.org as the home page and so need to use something else.

Suggest you discuss the internal workings of the nonprofits on their own respective web sites, not here.

Rod
www.sunsetsystems.com

tmccormi wrote on Thursday, July 28, 2011:

Rod says: "You’re gonna have to fork the project if you want to go in that direction. "  – sounds like a threat to fork to me. 

Since I, personally, have no intention of forking nor does the OEMR board wish to fork, who would be doing the forking if you split off the website, what exactly would be on that page that is not already one the oemr.org page.  Are we going to have competing websites?   Might as well be going to openemr.org, owned by a troll or openemr.net both owned Phyaura.

PS: Sam did nothing but copy the links and menu items from the original page and add a sidebar for for the first paid advertising we were offered by a member of this community. The forums sections were added by Art (a member of this community).   The administration and setup of the wiki and the website are also done by members of this community.  There is no one on the board of OEMR except the accountant and the banker that are not active members of this community and the banker is just there to make the IRS happy.

So, that’s a pretty big vote in favor of what OEMR is doing, I would say.

-Tony

-Tony

tmccormi wrote on Thursday, July 28, 2011:

errata, typo openemr.org is not owned by Phyaura, just .net

sunsetsystems wrote on Thursday, July 28, 2011:

The forking discussion makes no sense.  You quoted my reference to OEMR.org forking, not me.

What we want on the web site has already been identified by Brady in this thread.  The ad for ZH in particular is completely unacceptable.

Nice to hear that OEMR.org gives itself a big vote.

Rod
www.sunsetsystems.com

zhhealthcare wrote on Thursday, July 28, 2011:

So bottom line is
a) Rod cannot accept the decision made by the Board in a democratic fashion and wants to veto it.
b) It is not the advertisement per se that is causing heartburn but the advertisement from ZH in particular;  when even Brady was not against the ZH advert but the position on the site where it is displayed ( I am going by his first response)
c) Still no idea on how money can be generated to support the cause.

sunsetsystems wrote on Thursday, July 28, 2011:

a) The Board speaks only for its members which are a small subset of the OpenEMR community.

b) The ZH ad happens to be the one that is there. I have nothing against ZH, despite the endless insinuations. It may be that I feel more strongly about ads than Brady does, not sure.

c) Already covered earlier in this thread.  It is a 501©3, right?  You guys gonna do anything with that?

Rod
www.sunsetsystems.com

sunsetsystems wrote on Thursday, July 28, 2011:

I see how you might have misinterpreted my earlier comment about the ad.  “In particular” was meant to reference “ad”, not “ZH”.  Again, no ill feelings towards you guys.

Rod
www.sunsetsystems.com

jcahn2 wrote on Friday, July 29, 2011:

It amazes me to see this level of tension and disagreement surface at a time when the project with the help of OEMR is on the cusp of one of the greatest singular accomplishments in OpenEMR history - the full ONC meaningful use certification.  This is really an incredible accomplishment for an open source project and has required the team to cobble together organizational, technical, and financial resources from hither and yonder into a wonderful result.

I suggest that everyone take a deep breath, give this thread a furlough, finish the certification process patch a bug fix or two, have a beer, then give yourselves and each other a pat on the back and a hug.  Do not lose sight of how magnificent this is for the medical open source community!   Thank you all.

tmccormi wrote on Friday, July 29, 2011:

Thanks Jack!  I was talking to the one of the key contributers and community manager of the OpenMRS project last night at OSCON.  He remarked that he has been told, In times of community stress with in his project, that it just means the community is healthy and active.  Loaded with folks that really care about it.  He was told this by folks in projects much older than his (or ours).

I apologize for my own brand of hot-headed-ness …

-Tony

bradymiller wrote on Friday, July 29, 2011:

Hi,

I think the misstep taken here was that OEMR designed a implementation plan (including the advertising) for the new site that seemed reasonable. However, when implementing the plan, some members of the community began voicing some real concerns. Rather than listen, those concerns appeared to be ignored by OEMR as the original plan was carried out. At this point it became apparent they were not addressing these issues, so I requested(via forum and several emails) that the site migration be delayed/reversed in order to simply address/resolve the issues. My request was a completely appropriate request which was ignored/minimized.

I would never ever consider forking the project, and that is not what I am proposing. I’m just concerned that the above took place, and that the community should consider the possibility of a separate Project site and a separate OEMR site(note the Project site would still clearly list OEMR prominently in multiple places on the site as it’s entity/Supporter to not lose the certification/ICSA etc.). These things are never set in stone and I hope it will be only temporary after OEMR addresses/resolves the issues.

Since this site was pretty much built in an hour, please understand it’s not the Mona Lisa. I have placed it on sourceforge and can be found here:
http://openemr.sourceforge.net
(note we will also have the web address ww.open-emr.org be directed to it at some point in the future)

Note I’m extremely disappointed that we are forced to deal with this stuff while also celebrating the recent ICSA testing, but am optimist that it will be resolved.

Sincerely,
Brady

blankev wrote on Friday, July 29, 2011:

Dear all,

athough I am a fevent downloader, I still feel uncomfortable to use teh klatest OEMR project to it’s fullest extend. I is a beautiful product and a result of beautiful dedicated people. Something every contributor can be proud of.

Let us keep in mind we want to make this product better. The way to do this is a joint effort. All joint efforts have friction and celebration times. Some have to give and some have to accept. But as long as the general goal is supported, this product can only become even more functional than it is already. We strive to make the work of the heath care people more efficient with this product and give better and well documented care. Making money is just a nice side effect. To some of more importance than others.

Tnx again to ALL CONTRIBUTORS of this great joint effort!

Pimm

jcahn2 wrote on Friday, July 29, 2011:

Ahoy Brady,

I do like your reworking on the sourceforge OpenEMR home page.  Since I never leave well enough alone, I would like to see the tabbed format used on the home page persist in every other page, and links open in the same window rather than a new window.  This would really speed site navigation :>)

Jack
Jack

tsvas wrote on Friday, July 29, 2011:

Thanks Brady.  Having web address of http://openemr.sourceforge.net makes it real open EMR.  Thanks to all great contributors.

1.  In http://www.google.com/search?q=open+emr, http://openemr.sourceforge.net should appear in top.
2.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenEMR links need to be updated.

aethelwulffe wrote on Friday, July 29, 2011:

My opinions:
1.  Advertizing on OEMR.org should be snuffed.  It does need to be vendor neutral.  Period.
2.  OEMR.org needs to provide the nicer, more direct links the new page has (or better), and provide links to the sourceforge forums as well as a new set of forums.  As to what site to link to within the emr…well that is an argument for another day.

I am disappointed too.
I am sorry that I have been a babe in the woods.  I didn’t understand what was going on here, I was not informed of any of the goings-on, and I had no idea that anyone was “taking unapproved action” or otherwise stepping on anyone’s toes in any way.

  I am sorry you had to build a page in an hour to make sure you could control content.   that It’s a shame that anyone else should have had to waste a large investment openly discussing, planning, and working within a different paradigm.
It’s a shame that people want to use the project as a promotional vehicle.  It’s a shame that program documentation is so poor, incomplete, and out of date.  It’s a shame that there is no central recognized body that can support the efforts of all by actually doing work that has gone undone for the most part.
  I certainly wish that as the real and apparently only controlling forces (Brady and Rod) as well as the folks they were communicating with (Tony and Sam) had discussed these issues publicly enough (and directly enough) with everyone else involved in the effort.  I had no idea that we were involved in a divisive and touchy environment, or that any of the private e-mails were going back and forth.  I also thought that Brady and Rod were CONTROLLING the methodology of the OEMR site building, and I just thought that they were on the OEMR board as well, or were rather defacto members.  I also was not consulted (as a board member) in any issue of advertizement.  I would certainly have stated that the project’s official site should NOT be used as a promotional vehicle for anything other than the software itself, and the charitable organization.  I also had NO IDEA that OEMR.org was the “front page” of OpenEMR, and served no other purpose.  Frankly, there has not been a “front page” for the walk-ins, just a bunch of disjointed pages on different domains and funky stuff from vendors, as well as look-alike and spoof pages.  Openemr doesn’t own it’s own domain name in .org or .com.  I myself had never even SEEN oemr.org until quite recently.  Seemed like an abandoned project that could be worked on, tweaked, fixed up, and then folks could migrate in as they liked.  I had no idea that anyone not involved in working on it gave a shit at this point.

  Stupid me.  I am involved in an old struggle, and I don’t even know the rules of the game.  I suppose partisan politics and hard lines and hidden agendas are the way of things, but I don’t have time to fight losing and divisive arguments.
  I am also extremely disappointed.

I don’t understand why something as obvious and simple as a quality web-site for the project has eluded a pack of web developers.  I don’t understand why it only takes someone an hour to produce an acceptable front page and such when it has gone unattended and untouched for years.  Someone takes initiative and tries to do something else….someone sees control slipping away…sudden half-measures…kill the initiative…status quo.  Crap guys!

  I would like to hear (in plain language one more time) everyone’s hard line.  If there is a middle road that still achieves something, I’ll play along.  If there isn’t, I’m gonna pick a different fight.

  EXAMPLE:  “We are NOT moving the forums, we are not using anything other than sourceforge, and here is how I am going to force the issue”.

EXAMPLE:  “I don’t have a hard line, but I don’t want anyone controlling anything centrally, and I want my personal business logo as the headliner for all Openemr documentation.”

EXAMPLE:  “No new taxes, especially for the wealthy without whom the peasants would just all run off a cliff.”

Excuse my sarcasm guys.  It’s too early and I worked too late.  I have been working on a “A-Z” practice EMR set-up walk-through using OpenEMR.  I have many many hours into it at this point, and with this reality check I wonder if it would ever see the light of day should I finish it.

sunsetsystems wrote on Friday, July 29, 2011:

Brady, thanks!  I like openemr.sourceforge.net, I think no need to use open-emr.org.  Is that hand-coded HTML?

Rod
www.sunsetsystems.com