RE: [Op-torch-general] MIE 2005 and EFMI

[David, R. <rus...@gs...>]

Thanks a lot Michael for your prompt answer,

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I appreciate very much your attention and looking forward for further
collaboration and joint activities. In special I was impressed by your
so detailed description of your current beginnings. Please note that
drug reference FOSS initiative already has been established. For more
info and download please visit this page http://www.drugref.org/ .

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Regarding your "fighting with drugs" please allow me to share some my
personal views:=20

In general I would like to suggest you to avoid inclusion of the drug
descriptions and interactions into TORCH, the reason is very simple one
- TORCH as result will become a commercial product! Would be better if
the system will be capable to store drug descriptions and drug
interactions added by front end users (doctors, nurses). Usually doctors
using a limited amount of drugs and this point is a very normal one,
because medicine as computer science has many directions (ophthalmology,
gynaecology, etc.). At least it is my opinion, your comments are
welcome!

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Regarding how and when I could help you... I'm already making some
attempts to do so :-) but seriously speaking please just inform me when
your will need some support from designing point of view (templates,
usability, graphics, icons, css, etc.) Regarding my programming skills
I'm learning :-( unfortunately... learning.

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Of course don't forget to keep me informed about readiness of your
article and in general about your realisations:-)

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Sincerely,

Ruslan

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-----Original Message-----
From: op-...@li...
[mailto:op-...@li...] On Behalf Of
Michael A Rowley, MD
Sent: Dienstag, 16. August 2005 22:02
To: op-...@li...; David, Ruslan
Subject: Re: [Op-torch-general] MIE 2005 and EFMI

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Hey Ruslan,

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I apologize for not being more prompt in my reply. Just been busy the
last couple of days.  I am the lead developer on the project.    I am
going to try and address some of your questions first.=20

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Dear Michael and Colleagues,

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I would like to request more information regarding the exiting
possibilities to be involved in your beginnings. Sincerely I'm very
impressed about your realisations and in parallel I'm a little confused
- why you aren't promoting more actively the TORCH Project.

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Well, I have been the lead developer for a little over a year, before
that the project belonged to Tim Cook, who started the project with the
original torch 1.3 version.  Since that time, I have rewritten almost
every line of code.  I have advocated torch as much as I feel is
reasonable, for a project that hasn't released a stable file yet.  I am
happy to accept any help that is offered, the issue is figuring how
where and how you can help. :)

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Regarding my candidature (I hope I would be accepted as one interested
and motivated in development guy J ) please allow me at the moment to be
modest, just have a look at my recent project  <http://mirc.gsf.de/>
http://mirc.gsf.de (unfortunately it is not yet Zope/Plone based one ):=20

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Here is where the problem lies.  We are not organized enough yet to need
help with the code source, and zope/plone/archetypes, while much simpler
than some options, do require a good deal of background.  One of our
developers started recently, has experience in Java, C++, and is a
professional programmer, and has had a lot of learning to do with
zope/plone and archetypes.  So starting out there is a steep learning
curve.  Some of the design things, like CSS, skins, documentation, and
background activities, we could certianly use help with also, but I am
not sure where to start! :) =20

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I do have a couple of ideas for features I would like to add that you
could certainly help with, like

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  1)  There is no FOSS drug reference that I can find, but have had
limited time to research.  I would be happy to host such a beast on my
server, and allow people to add information, and updates to it.  This
would be a great help to us, and the medical community in general.  Plus
this is an animal that is designed around a relational db model.  We
could start the initial project with the DB design.  My vote would go
for PostgreSQL, but it doesn't matter a lot.

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2) Drug interaction db: I think of this as separate from above, but it
is definitely linked.  It is a beast though, as realistically, it needs
to include contraindications with medical conditions, and indications
with medical conditions.  It should allow us to compare a prescription
to other meds, and to the problem list to flag for possible
interactions.

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3) I would like to start a project to keep a FOSS ICD-9 db. This is less
apropos to you, as it is an Americal beast, I believe it is not used
anywhere else.  I envy everywhere else in this. :)  But for american
physicians, this would be an excellent opportunity for a FOSS project.
Again, I would be happy to host this.  Any takers are welcome.





So far I have no feedbacks from my last message; I hope that my modest
request for contribution to the TORCH project will be accepted.

I can only plead that I have been very busy. ;)

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Now I would like to ask the TTORCH community if someone will be present
at the MIE 2005 Conference ( <http://www.mie2005.net/>
http://www.mie2005.net)? If so please let me know!

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I think Jake and I would both love to go to this conference, even if it
was just to get a trip to Switzerland. :)  But unfortunately, our
primary goal is to get a beta out the door by October.  That is were we
will really start being able to involve other people, as we can show
what we have done this far, and start working with add ons.   Every day
I hope we will be able to put the demo up on the web site (soon to be at
www.torchmd.org)

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Supplementary I would like to ask the TORCH developers for a short
article describing your initiatives in order to publish this article as
news on the EFMI Web Portal. Web address of the European Federation for
Medical Informatics Web Portal I've mentioned in my previous e-mail (
<http://www.efmi.org/> www.efmi.org or  <http://mirc.gsf.de/>
http://mirc.gsf.de).

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Wonderful idea, and I will work on this.  I would like to see it on the
Linux Med News site, and anywhere we could get the word out.  We will
hope to be able to do this by October also.

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Let me know what you think about the above.  I look foward to hearing
from you.

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Michael Rowley MD

Project Manager

TORCH2

Trusted Open source Records for Care and Health

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