Re: [Gnumed-devel] Just joining

[richard terry]

On Wednesday 07 August 2002 7:14 pm, Alan O'Keefe wrote:
> Hi Richard
>
> I have downloaded the anonymous CVS and am going to build the
> server database and look at the client over the weekend.
>
> What we need is a import engine with modular parser's for various
> formats, (eg. PIT, HL7, maybe XML in the future). 

I suspect we will need all/combinations to work concurrently because of 
different data formats from different providers?

> The first step
> would be to import report images, this is relatively, (!!), easy.

I presume you mean PIT.

> The next step is to look at the whole electronic ordering/results
> interpreting can of worms, (you might be surprised how much of a
> pain LOINC is in this area, though there isn't much out there that
> is better).

I've noted LOINC to be a pain when I did my parser - it seemed in part to have 
its own illogical areas, and mapping back to a requested test was sometime 
problematic.
>
> What we may have to do is to setup an internal ordering data set
> and provide mapping tables from that to each of the key pathology
> providers.  Is there any general pathology ordering guidelines
> defined by the College of General Practitioners that we could use
> as an internal data set ?

I don't know, one of us (you or I) could check that out. If you don't have 
time, I will contact someone in the Hunter Area Pathology Service and find 
out. Let me know.

I have a reasonably complete set of terms (not mapped to LOINC), originally 
the HAPS request ordering set. They may have standardised on something else 
since I aquired them. One of the other things from a GP perspective is that 
we may not remember all the correct terms, but want to request something 
generic like 'Hepatitis B post vaccination titre' as opposed to the corrrect 
term.
>
> I know that there are several government e-health initiatives, but
> as I'm no longer "officially" in the health industry, (I'm now an
> independent consultant),

I've never seen government e-health initiatives amount to much. Perhaps I'm 
too much of a cynic. Having sat on government committees and govt funded 
projects I'm somewhat jaded.

> I don't necessarily have direct access to
> that stuff anymore.  Is there anyone who can give me some info on
> the current state of play in this area, both here in Australia, and
> overseas in the various interested countries.

Malcom Ireland is always a good contact regarding medical IT in Australia, he 
may know, or may know who to ask. He's on this list, so fire a question to 
him

> I live in Sunbury, (just near Tullamarine airport in Melbourne).
>
> I have read your documents, it looks pretty sophisticated, I can't
> judge the workflow aspects of them as I've never practiced as a
> doctor. ;-)
>
> Let me get what's in CVS installed and have a look before I get
> any further into all of this.
>
> Regards
> Alan
>
> On Wed, 2002-08-07 at 18:05, richard terry wrote:
> > Big welcome with open arms!
> >
> > You will love python and wxPython I'm sure.
> >
> > Have you downloaded the CVS?
> >
> > > I am an experienced Programmer/Systems-integrator, mainly
> > > working in the pathology area, (don't know much python yet,
> > > but hey, what's another language).  I have just "discovered"
> > > the GnuMed project and would be interested in getting involved
> > > from the point of integrating external data from sources
> > > such as pathology and radiology, (I have quite a bit of experience
> > > with HL7).
> >
> > Done, you have the job.
> >
> >  I've mucked round with HL7/HL7-PIT which Douglas Hanly Moir use - I
> > wrote a quickn dirty HL7 parser in Visual Basic one night, just to see
> > how the data came out, I'm sure with your skills you can do much better.
> >
> > > I am currently working with a couple of major Australian pathology
> > > groups in various projects and with the Triple G, vendor of the
> > > ULTRA pathology LIS.
> >
> > I Note you are from Oz. Can you let us know where abouts. Horst is from
> > Dorrigo, David from Lismore, Ian Haywood from Melbourne, I live in
> > Newcastle.
> >
> > My role in the project is gui designer/coordinator. My quals for this are
> > somewhat dubious, however as I've posted to the list before, go read:
> > http://www.gnumed.net/rterry/Index.htm  for a summary, and some idea of
> > the design philosophy behind the interface. I'm currently knocking up a
> > rough gui for gnumed which needs much refinement but is starting to look
> > functional. Ian haywood has implemented the plugin mechanism behind the
> > gui screens together with Karsten from East Germany.
> >
> > I have a fully functional vb medical records system which I use in my
> > project (see the screen dumps at the above address, including a generic
> > form generator. I've a complete list of pathology ordering terms I use
> > (from Hunter Area Pathology) but we really need to move over to some
> > standardisation (?loinc) so as to allow linkage with the results via HL7.
> >
> > If you are anywhere local, give me a ring on 02 49 426861 (work) or home
> > 02 49527591 after 8pm one night.
> >
> > BTW the gnumed slogan is 'gnumed never sleeps', quite apt given the
> > multi-national group working on it in both hemispheres!
> >
> > Dr Richard Terry
> > General Practitioner
> > gui-coordinator
> > gnuMed Project.
> >
> > > Please let me know how I can help.
> > >
> > > Regards
> > > Alan