Re: [Gnumed-devel] Re: GNUmed + KOrganizer (appointments and scheduling)

[J Busser]

On Mar 8, 2007, at 7:28 AM, Karsten Hilbert wrote:
> Ich habe mal niedergeschrieben, was unsere Anforderungen wären:
>         http://wiki.gnumed.de/bin/view/Gnumed/MiniProjects#AnchorKOrganizer

Sorry if I missed any description of the plan or idea for this.

Perhaps KOrganizer is a useful way to get appointment-management  
going for GNUmed, I do not know the program or its technology well  
enough. But maybe there is value considering or sharing thoughts on  
the following:

1. does coding to KOrganizer tie Linux users to KDE or can KOrganizer  
be used under other desktops without the user having to run all of  
KDE? Would KOrganizer be installed and running on each desktop or  
only on the server, and would the KOrganizer data set be shared from  
a single file on the server? Is there a problem if a user somehow  
creates additional appointments with the data stored somehow on their  
own desktop?

2. what would it mean for a non-Linux OS? For Mac OS, KOrganizer  
looks to be ported (Mac OS 10.3 PowerPC chip but not yet 10.4 Intel  
chip). For Windows I found http://dot.kde.org/1062148358/ but  
following a link to www.thekompany.com it looks like the Aethera  
suite for Windows (now) instead uses Kolab.

3. even if KOrg runs under multiple OS, how shall doctors manage 2  
electronic calendars (a patient calendar and a personal calendar)  
especially if it is possible that both types of appointments could  
appear in the same calendar application. This may not be anything new  
for doctors who already use some non-GNUmed electronic patient  
calendaring but there can be more than one approach and maybe it is  
worth discussing any best solutions?

I am not sure I would want personal appointments to show up in the  
same calendar being used by the office without sophisticated masking,  
though maybe KOrganizer already does that. I am used to carrying some  
schedule information in my Palm (PIM) but am less sure carrying any  
details of booked patients. I suppose for personal (non-patient)  
scheduling, a doctor could use Outlook or Apple iCal synced to their  
PIM and only mark (block) the days and hours that are reserved for  
patient appointments, leaving out any detail of those appointments,  
this would instead be managed inside KOrganizer. It is true the  
doctor could log into GNUmed remotely when they want to check on  
their *usual* bookings, but a problem arises when the office needs to  
special-book a patient outside of the doctor's usual block times...  
but maybe that would anyway require a special contact with the doctor  
to get their agreement for a special appointment and they would add  
this into their PDA as "clinic" or "surgery" without the patient  
details.