On Fri, 3 May 2002, Dr. David H Chan wrote: ... > It's not a toy. Hi David, Indeed, OSCAR is not meant to be a toy. Similar to many projects represented on this mailing list, it shall have its deserving place. ;-)
> I would love to hear from some of you who would bother to load up IE6 > and give me your honest opinion. I have marked this message off-topic [OT?] because OSCAR does not really qualify as an "open source project" yet - although I do believe that your repeated promises to do so ought to be taken into consideration. Anyways, even if a system is not open-source, we can still learn from it : Thus, I am grateful to have had a chance to log into OSCAR demo server yesterday and examine its user-interface (using Microsoft IE6). This is some of the things that I learned: 1) OSCAR uses a schedule-centric interface. Patients are place on schedules which are accessible to various "groups" of users. This is a strikingly useful interface! 2) It has a templating system (for free text note input) as well as a form-based facility (for structured data). This is different from FreePM which only has a template system. OIO actually has both - although most users of the OIO system refuse to acknowledge the existence of the "text templates". :-) 3) I did not see a template designer or a form designer. It is possible that these functions are external to the OSCAR system. 4) The main supported workflow seems to be pick a time, schedule a patient, fill-out encounter form, prescription, schedule next appointment, complete billing form. 5) It has nice billing forms. 6) It has a drug lookup screen and a prescription writing module. The prescription writing module is not fully integrated with the drug-lookup module. 7) It also has a messaging module - however, it does not appear to be integrated into the clinical workflow. It looks like a stand-alone module at this time. 8) OSCAR does not seem to have too many serious bugs at this time. There are some error screens but generally not involving the major functions. 9) In summary, OSCAR seems to be ready to maintain appointments, encounter notes, structured data collection / billing information. 10) I like to know more about the template creation and forms creation methods. 11) OSCAR reminds me of FreePM (with its use of multiple browser windows) and an "encounter note" around which everything else revolve. OSCAR is different from FreePM in that OSCAR is much more scheduling-centric than FreePM. Perhaps the FreePM team can benefit from studying OSCAR? 12) I don't see OSCAR as that far ahead of FreePM (or FreeMed) in its development. Perhaps David or those more knowledgeable about FreePM etc would care to correct me. Or, perhaps I have missed major modules of OSCAR in my cursory run through? Best regards, Andrew --- Andrew P. Ho, M.D. OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes www.TxOutcome.Org (Hosting OIO Library #1 and OSHCA Mirror #1)
