Re: Fwd: [Gnumed-devel] I need some help

[Karsten Hilbert]

On Thu, Jul 06, 2006 at 03:54:01PM +0300, Peter Damoc wrote:

> >Well, no. I am solving my real-world problem. My daily work
> >includes concurrency. So that needs to be solved. I am
> >encountering patient locks caused by concurrency constraints
> >*daily* in the software that I use. Mind you, they are
> >needed to ensure consistency but they do unnecessarily stop
> >my workflow.

> Could you provide a small example? I admit I cannot imagine concurrency
> being all that often. Maybe there is something I'm missing...

Patient comes in, is treated, gets told to pick up several
prescriptions, referrals, letters at the front desk. Patient
leaves exam room heads down to front desk. During that time
I *start* filling in the forms and sending them to the front
desk for printing (by way of our EMR). Patient arrives at
front desk. Front desk starts printing out the forms I
already entered. Now, one of two things happens: Either I
block the front desk from printing out forms by still
entering additional forms for that patient or the front desk
blocks me from entering the still missing forms. It is not
unusual for front desk staff to phone me up in the exam room
to urge me to write the missing forms -- all the while
blocking me from doing so because they still have the
patient open (front desk doesn't have a clue how all this
works).

Another example:

Patient is sent to X-ray dept. They open up the patient EMR,
take the X ray but "forget" to close the patient again
preventing me from entering further data into that patient
EMR. Much worse because I cannot phone the X ray dept. but
have to physically walk down the hallway to get them to
release the patient.

Same thing when I phone a consultant upstairs to take a look
at some X ray or some document. Unless we are careful we
block each other out from patient editing.

A daily hassle. And all that with the software recently
having gotten *better* in that regard !

I hope to have none of this crap in GNUmed.

Nevertheless, in well-defined circumstances it *is* possible
to create a reality which does not need concurrency. Not in
*my* reality, unfortunately, though.

Karsten
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