I'd prefer to assume that the CCHIT pricing model is simply biased toward software companies that can produce a viable product. And by that I mean a software product that stimulates revenue for a company at some point - which in our case is not through the sale of software licenses.
Nothing wrong with that bias. CCHIT is obviously trying to stand as a self-contained, objective certification body. It can't do that unless it charges fees. It's up to people seeking a certification to determine if the investment into the certification will bring enough returns in the long run. I maintain open souce software is a path toward stimulated economies and innovation ...... CCHIT doesn't owe anything to open source software and shouldn't be required to lower their fees. It's up to us to demonstrate that open source solutions compete on all fronts. As for "giving other companies an edge" if you release certified CCHIT software a open source, I maintain that risk can be managed. CCHIT fees, whatever they are, get back to the question at hand: can an open source software company produce a viable healthcare product? Richard Fred Trotter wrote: > The current CCHIT pricing module seems biased against any GPL based system. > Joseph has already written about this, but I would like for us to consider > group action in the issue. > > The first issue is pricing. It will cost a $25,000 to $35,000 one-time fee > to perform the test. After certification, an annual fee based on sales will > be required which will be at least $5,000 a year. According to... > > http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=4639 > > This pricing assumes a proprietary business model. The "seal of approval" > model is also problematic. Suppose I pay the fee to have MirrorMed (my > project of choice) certified. There is no way for me to guarentee that only > I benifit from the "seal". My competitors which have full access to the code > that I would have certified would be able to correctly claim that the code > had been certified, and would benifit with me. As with the original pricing > there is no way to fairly spread these kinds of costs across a community. As > a result, FOSS medical software could face an environment where there > products could not compete against "certified" proprietary products. > > Free and Open Source EMR vendors are not the only one effected by this. This > will target any small vendor, open source or otherwise. www.emrupdate.com is > writing a group letter for the CCHIT feedback process which points this out. > > http://www.emrupdate.com/forums/thread/46564.aspx > > I think that we should consider also writing a group letter. I would be > willing to author this, if I knew that once it was written and reviewed, > that some of the influential people on this list might sign it. Another > possiblity is to piggy-back on the emrupdate letter. Thoughts? > > -- > Fred Trotter > SynSeer, Consultant > http://www.fredtrotter.com > http://www.synseer.com > phone: (480)290-8109 > email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/openhealth/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
