Google launched its mobile T1 phone with much hoo-ha in October. It operates on the open source Android operating system based on Linux.
The first bug has appeared ... a man was sending a text message to his girlfriend and the message contained the word reboot ... the phone promptly rebooted!
To their credit Google have already issued an automatic bug-fix available tu US users on Tuesday and UK users on Wednesday this week. Blimey ... even I know that issuing the command reboot in a Unix/Linux terminal will result in a ...
In other developments the Australian company IBA Health announced the launch of the first release of its electronic medical record (EMR) software Lorenzo, developed by its subsidiary iSoft, on Wednesday. The NHS Connecting for Health has comissioned this software for keeping patient records throughout most of the north of England (it is purchasing different EMR software for other areas - fully compatible?).
Now I have a few questions here ...
1. IBA Health/iSoft is selling Lorenzo elsewhere so presumably development costs are being shared with other countries.
2. Clearly Lorenzo has to be adaptable to the healthcare systems of different countries.
3. The reply to my FOIA request to the DoH regarding the storage of patient records stated that they would be stored on Solaris Unix servers running Oracle database software. So Lorenzo has to interface with Unix.
4. Are Solaris Unix OS and Oracle database software licenses paid directly to these companies or through DoH contractors (in the case of Lorenzo distributions Computer Sciences Corporation)? If the latter does the DoH know if and how much their contractors are marking-up licensing fees?
4. The DoH contract with Microsoft includes developing (amongst other things?) a Common User Interface (CUI) for Windows workstations - so Lorenzo also has to interface with the Windows CUI. In addition, the EMR software in other areas of England has to interface with Microsoft Windows, Lorenzo, Oracle and Solaris Unix.
5. OGC states that "UK Government will consider obtaining full rights to bespoke software code or customisations of of COTS (Commercial off the Shelf) wherever this provides best value for money." Does the DoH/NHS have full rights to the adapted Lorenzo code and the MS CUI code?
6. Does/will MS Windows Vista, and the projected Windows 7 (issued in beta this week) work with the NHS CUI a customisation of COTS? If
7. The NHS Northwest SHA has been assisting iSoft in trialling their Lorenzo software on a ward or two at the Morecambe (Lancashire) district general hospital. Staff have been maintaining their traditional paper patient records alongside the new Lorenzo system - obviously extra workload to maintain two systems. Who has paid for the extra staff worktime in maintaining both the traditional paper-basd system alongside the iSoft Lorenzo system?
And finally do NHS CfH know what the fuck they are doing? Who is leading who in NHSCfH - the IT people (are there any?) or the managers?
Do these issues warrant a further FOIA request?
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5 comments:
Angus, I tried three times to read this entire post, but every time I got to the end of the second paragraph my (Windows) computer crashed and restarted itself. What's going on?
Rob - I really don't know. I'm reading it on a WinXP Pro computer fine.
A couple of comments:
- The patient Record will be accessed via the Spine and there are defined message formats that Lorenzo and Cerner Millenium have to conform to in order to access the data.
- CUI is a set of recommendations and controls that help improve the patient safety aspects of clinical systems. The vendors are currently under no obligation to adopt it.
Two weeks ago you posted (2nd paragraph): "The first bug has appeared ... a man was sending a text message to his girlfriend and the message contained the word reboot ... the phone promptly rebooted!"
To which I replied: "Angus, I tried three times to read this entire post, but every time I got to the end of the second paragraph my (Windows) computer crashed and restarted itself. What's going on?"
(I was joking, eh?)
Shit! I fell for it!
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