Re: [Gnumed-devel] drugref2 in Oscar

[Sebastian Hilbert]

Am Montag 15 Februar 2010 20:13:58 schrieb Jim Busser:
> On 2010-02-15, at 10:55 AM, Jim Busser wrote:

Karsten will have to comment but here is my view.

> > See also next email for some general questions about how the drugref
> > concept might best be leveraged, going forward
> 
> The original drugref web site (www.drugref.org) would appear, judging from
> archive.com, to have gone dormant with no new pages since 2007 and the
> site is no longer responding to web page requests, yet the domain appears
> to still be registered:
> 
>       http://www.robtex.com/dns/drugref.org.html
> 
> Background information on the what the project intended remains
> web-acessible at:
> 
>       http://www.hl7.org.au/docs/ITOL/ITOL_drugref.org.pdf
>       http://linuxmednews.com/1040692306
> 
savannah indicates that Ian Haywood and Horst Herb have initiated the project. 
I am not aware that there has been recent work. I will try to contact them.

> So my larger questions pertain to how drugref might most optimally be used.
> Is the idea that:
> 
> - for purposes of speed and reliable access, a praxis which uses GNUmed may
> desire to also install drugref locally?
> 
Yes.

> - would drugref be instantiated separately from GNUmed and "serve" requests
> that are issued to it by local GNUmed?
> 
Yes.

> - would GNUmed clients issue drugref requests directly to the drugref
> server, or would it be the GNUmed server that passes the requests to
> drugref?
> 
Yes. GNUmed client talks to a drugref server which is a seperate program 
either running as a daemon or called through the command line. A simple way 
would be to call it like we call kprinter. 

> - if drugref would be installed locally, would it best fall under a
> framework in which there would exist a primary "reference" drugref server,
> ideally mirrored for load-balancing, against which locally-installed
> drugrefs would remain "in sync" ?

Nah. that is pure overkill. Here in Germany where drug databases are essential 
for doctors there are quarterly updates of the drug data. No need to sync more 
often. Maybe I don't get your point here.

Sebastian