drkay wrote on Wednesday, January 30, 2013:
I have a Welch Allyn LXi Vital Signs Monitor that I would like to connect to Open EMR to fill-in the vitals form automatically.
I imagine we’ll need to sponsor development of this connection financially. Is there anyone else out there who would like to chip-in to help develop this connection?
James L. Kay, D.O., FAAP
Santiago Pediatrics
Mission Viejo, California
yehster wrote on Wednesday, January 30, 2013:
The biggest financial piece is going to be obtaining the SDK
http://www.welchallyn.com/wafor/connectivity/developer_information.htm
The Welch Allyn Device Connectivity SDK is an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) software product that is licensed to Electronic Health Records systems (EHR) manufacturers for integration into commercially available software applications. The SDK provides developers the ability to communicate with and collect data from Welch Allyn electronic medical devices. The SDK provides connectivity to the Welch Allyn Spot LXi, Spot Vital Signs, VSM 300 and VSM 5200.
Alternately, we could also try to identify the workflow issues with the current vital signs form(s) and address them.
A crazy, but “multi platform” idea that would support multiple types of devices would be to write an iOS or Android app. After picking a patient, you would then take a picture of the display and then it could OCR the results. The fancy LCD display of your Welch Allyn box would unfortunately be harder to OCR than an “old school” 7 segment red LED based readout.
drkay wrote on Wednesday, January 30, 2013:
Hoo boy. That sounds expen$ive!
The main workflow issue is human error with typing the numbers. My staff often type numbers incorrectly.
I contacted Welch Allyn via their web form. We’ll see what they say.
yehster wrote on Wednesday, January 30, 2013:
Are they using a keyboard with a number pad? or is it a laptop with just numbers at the top.
Any touchscreen or pen based devices in your office? Maybe an on screen keyboard in the OpenEMR interface is something to consider. Hold the device up next to the Welch Allyn read-out with one hand and punch the number in with the other. Better immediate feedback on the accuracy of the data entry if you can see both sets of data at the same time.
Perhaps 7 inch android tablets would be a good solution?
drkay wrote on Wednesday, January 30, 2013:
Ooo. Good suggestions. They are using a standard keyboard on a PC. I’ll look into this.
yehster wrote on Wednesday, January 30, 2013:
Also, are they using the tab key to choose fields or do they click with the mouse?
One hand on the keypad and the other on the tab key might be better than trying to use the mouse.
yehster wrote on Thursday, January 31, 2013:
If you do go the tablet route, then we can think about tweaking the layout of the vitals form to better suit the screen size.
E.g. Make things a little bigger to accommodate fat fingers.
drkay wrote on Wednesday, February 20, 2013:
VERY PLEASANT SURPRISE FROM WELCH ALLYN: 
On 02/20/2013 12:38 PM, Eddie Hernandez wrote:
Hello Dr. Kay.
Thank you for the clarification. We’re always interested in working with people interested in connectivity of our products. For connectivity with our Vital Sign monitors we provide a Software Development Kit (SDK) at no charge and even provide support to developers, via email, telephone, web, etc.
The development can be simple and take a relatively short time to complete as we provide some sample source code to illustrate how it’s done. That information must then be used by a developer to create the software. Sometimes the programmer needs our technical support and we provide that at no charge as well. As you can imagine, we will be opening our source code, providing software and information that is considered confidential and proprietary. For this reason we ask that there be a mutual Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) in place. This is a very general document that describes that the use of the information is solely for the creation of a software interface between our devices and an EMR.
We have an NDA we can send you, but I will first need some details from you, such as the company name who will be responsible in receiving the SDK and the confidential information, a contact name, job title, physical address, telephone number and email address. Once signed, I can have the SDK sent to you. Thank you.
Best Regards,
Eddie
drkay wrote on Wednesday, February 20, 2013:
(I asked for and received permission to post the above response from the Welch Allyn representative.)
sunsetsystems wrote on Tuesday, March 26, 2013:
I hope this can/will be done in a way that relegates the NDA stuff to a small module, with the bulk of the work includable in the OpenEMR distribution and usable for other such devices. It’s so important to keep in mind what’s good for the project and its community when doing work for vendors.
drkay wrote on Tuesday, March 26, 2013:
Rod-
I hope so too, but I don’t know the details of how this will work. I think Tony’s company is only beginning to look at how to do this.
James Kay
mdsupport wrote on Tuesday, March 26, 2013:
Do LXi monitors have a cable connecting to the PC? Our spot monitors are supposed to have IR (infrared) connectivity to EMR.
robertrambo wrote on Tuesday, March 26, 2013:
Hello
I talked to support today there is the issue of the SDK being closed source…
So basically this means we can distribute the interface software but only as a binary package and not source-code.
It will be a activeX type of interface and can be distributed by the vendors on the board if openemr signs the agreement.
I feel that this should be put out by the vendors as a plugin and not part of the tree of course?
Is the board interested in licensing this api & sdk ?
Or should we do it on an individual basis?
-Rob
robertrambo wrote on Tuesday, March 26, 2013:
mdsupport
It is a usb or / infared scanner with bar code!
-Rob
sunsetsystems wrote on Tuesday, March 26, 2013:
Speaking just for myself - as a general rule I don’t sign NDAs. Suggest you see if the vendor can offer any sort of instructions for interfacing to their equipment without exposing their trade secrets.
robertrambo wrote on Tuesday, March 26, 2013:
Hello Rod,
I see where it becomes a major issue later with the license issues of a proprietary system
Very good advice.
Thank you
-Rob
mdsupport wrote on Wednesday, March 27, 2013:
Welch Allyn advertises that they are users and supporters of open source. Surely they would have dealt with other opensource projects among all the EHR Partners listed here?
tmccormi wrote on Wednesday, March 27, 2013:
Well I talked to them and they did not have any choices other than making me sign the NDA to get the interface specs.
Tony
truthhhurts wrote on Monday, April 01, 2013:
Not only is their SDK proprietary, it’s based on old COM objects making it really difficult to
a) Integrate with services
b) Avoid threading issues
c) Avoid Windows
It’s a real pity their developers decided to go this route
robertrambo wrote on Tuesday, April 02, 2013:
truthhhurts,
Is this the active x com?
I realized it is a windows interface they were talking about they did not mention any options for a nix machine?
I was still waiting to have time to discuss the license did you obtain the api?