[log in to unmask],Net wrote at 19:20 on 16/03/98 
about "Re: NHSE GP computer survey":
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>Out of interest Adrian - who are you with these days??
>
>Paul Bromley
>
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A good question.
The legacy system is Surgery Manager, the migration plan is not yet 
fully formed.
The local PCG is going to have to come to some conclusion when it 
forms, and since several practices have recently had their system 
supplier taken over (and are promised a new version of the software, 
which BTW will be in a different language and a Windows product 
instead of Unix...) we may well be ripe for a district move.

The Exeter system users are very happy with their system, the EMIS 
users are ditto, the Meditel S5 users are very efficient and use it 
well and are happy with it...
and at the risk of a flame again, the several users of Vamp medical 
are looking for the funds to change to something else, while 
exhibiting a range of behaviour from vituperative articles in the GP 
trade press turning on the lack of support and amazing financial 
imagination shown by the supplier, to a low grade and local 
muttering.

What with y2k arriving and the change to PCGs, I think I may for NHS 
purposes be an uncomputerised practice for a year or two, and let 
the survivor sell the NHS a system for me in 2001

My own code presently returns all significant information from the 
legacy system in the form of handy sized pages of text which I will 
either print out, wrap in html markers or feed into a suitable 
database.  
It prescribes nicely enough, the drug dictionary most of you have 
migrated to (you don't want to know which major supplier hasn't yet) 
is produced in Exeter, and is readily available, but it seems to me 
that my requirements as opposed to anybody elses would be served by 
the crosstab report of all prescriptions issued since 1992 - with an 
occasional addition by hand when a new drug interests me.

I have not yet decided how to handle the entry of notes on visits, 
and in the branch surgery.  Possibilities include using SQL Anywhere 
(we have a local org which is experienced in it for teleworking) and 
carrying a copy which synchronises periodically, or using a 
messaging system, or indeed a dictaphone.

IoS Links just died, and it seems unlikely that Reuters will ever 
get it running well, since Vamp communicator is available and there 
is actual expertise in making that work.  SM files are FoxPro, so 
Reuters will develop a solution to read them into Communicator, I 
expect.
Meanwhile it would be worth any practice considering buying the 
existing version of links, or HA reimbursing it thinking about the 
likelihood of it needing to be migrated in a year or three.

In fact I don't see any need to run Links, since it is easy to print 
onto GMS4s, and payment is actually made on the summary information 
("the bill") provided with the forms, against an audit trail held at 
the practice.

The general view among the user group appears to be tending toward 
EMIS rather than ViSion, on the basis of the reputation of the 
companies and the recommendations of the HAs concerned which are 
willing to offer any funding.
--- OffRoad 1.9r registered to Adrian Midgley


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