drbowen wrote on Tuesday, May 05, 2009:
The organizations who provide support for OpenEMR do this in a variety of ways.
The smaller companies go to a medical office configure a server, maintain software and provides for backups.
Some of the companies provide support remotely over the Internet usually by login remotely over a secure connection.
Some of the companies provide hosting services for a single office or two. As the organization grows it provides this service to multiple clinics where the data instances are only visible to one particular client. The instances are kept separate and they have used a variety mechanisms to do this.
I have been in contact with a couple of vendors who have solved this on a much larger scale by installing OpenEMR on a large distributed host network such as “Go-Daddy”.
These latter two types of operations could be referred to as Software as a Service (SAAS) though in common use SAAS really refers to the last situation.
There is nothing wrong with this type of vendor organization from advertising to attract new clients. Typically these are small offices that do not have and cannot afford a separate IT department or person. It is easier for these small offices to rent the facilities of the vendor organization by a “per month” fee.
The visitors coming to OpenEMR have a large percentage of organizations that look at using OpenEMR but just don’t have the technical expertise to install and operate any electronic medical record. They are mostly looking for a cheap solution and would prefer to just to let someone else handle the headaches of doing this correctly.
In addition to this, it is becoming clear that the complexity of the governmental requirements concerning “Meaningful Use” is very likely going to include secure email, secure messaging, E-Prescribing and document handling. These problems are best handled by vendor organizations that can provide these services for their client physicians. The “good intent” of these law makers is making the situation for physicians so complex that only professional IT companies will be able to deliver the solution.
As this market grows the next pressure OpenEMR is going to face is how scalable this software is. We will need to start working on streamlining the system to meet maximum loads under pressure. Tony McCormick’s group is running some scalability tests at this time. PHP can handle a lot of heat. “Facebook.com” and “Yahoo.com” run on PHP.
There is a growing number of professional IT companies that want a piece of the action. They will need physician clients. Our organizations that support us already need more clients. I think we can help “hook up” an important market with these vendors. We can use the funds generated to help support our tax-exempt organization and help support the development of OpenEMR.
Sam Bowen, MD
Open Source Medical Software