A speculation on why things work.

#1

There is an interesting article here

http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...130_048605.htm

It is about how "computers don't save hospitals money". The article
seems to say that hospital projects can be too oriented to the
administration and management side of the business. However, there
are successful implementations where, by providing something that's
useful and intuitive to the clinicians (ie the users), good systems
have been developed.

I'm not certain I agree 100%, because some of the systems I've worked
on have been built FOR administrators. However, the better ones do
seem to be intuitive - in the sense that it does what a knowledgable
user wants it to do. They also are clear so that new users can
readily get to grips with them, and are, in fact, guided in their
understanding of how things work.

The better ones are easy to support and code is written in a way I
like, although not always in a style I would use. The worst of the
ones I have worked on are dreadful, unfortunately. They are confusing
and it takes ages to understand what programs are doing - when you can
track down the damn thing. When I next work on the code, I have to
reanalyze it from scratch, because I can't seem to remember anything
about it unless I did a complete rewrite.

I think the key thing is clarity, the problem is how to have it at
multiple levels.

#2

Not everyone associated with MV existed the Market ... I believe that
Queensland Health is one of the largest sites that Reality has, and
Austin Health is touted as one of the Cache MV migration sucess
stories .... maybe it is just an Australian thing ?!?

#3

On Mar 9, 4:04*am, Ross Ferris <ro... (AT) stamina (DOT) com.au> wrote:

Quote:

Not everyone associated with MV existed the Market ... I believe that
Queensland Health is one of the largest sites that Reality has, and
Austin Health is touted as one of the Cache MV migration sucess
stories .... maybe it is just an Australian thing ?!?

There are a fair number here in the US as well. We have always been a
"pick" shop and have been thriving since 1982. I would agree whole
heartedly with some of the thoughts of the OP and Tony that many if
not most of the medical apps are written in a bass ackwards fashion
and the purchasing decisions are similar in many cases. But not
always. And a good number of pick shops survive in that space.
ZIrmed has a great series of products that are ( I believe ) driven by
a Universe back end. We are in the process of interviewing developers
and have been pleasantly surprised at how many pick experienced folks
we saw that were from the local area and had medical/insurance claims
experience. From their resumes, we got a good glimpse at who really
is using MV in the area. DE Blue Cross/Blue Shield, home health care
companies, private practices were all mentioned. The one bad thing
(for the industry) that we saw was a decided lack of younger people
that had experience in MV/pick.

Anyway, my two cents....
Steve

#4

Quote:

but most
Pick companies in this space simply died for lack of ability to adapt.

Quote:

The morals of the story are not just to have good software but 1) to
price it in-line with the expectations of the target audience, 2) to

make your software support the same pretty/frilly features as your
competitors even if you don't believe in such things, and 3) to
position the software as the proper political choice, not just the
right technical/pragmatic choice.

The political choice, and issue of lacking to adapt are certainly an aspect.

However, another significant trend are area I'd noticed in the business
marketplace is when the software and company running that particular system
is undercapitalized. By under capitalize, I often mean in terms of
personnel.

Of late, a number of pick systems I've seen being dropped or moved on by
longtime pick customers was not because the system did have not the
functionality, and not for lack of features. In fact looking at some of the
recent companies I'd seen dropping pick, it came down to those companies not
having enough personnel and continuity issues. In other words, the system
was beholden to one developer or one contractor.

This is not a whole lot different than having a company that maintains
support for your heating and air conditioning systems, or your photocopiers,
or anything else in the office. If that one person's health gets sick, or
is planning some type of retirement or what ever, then it becomes a
difficult issue to keep that system running. People prefer choosing a
software company with 15 or 20 employees and has some type of support phone
number. In other words, the beholden to one person is becoming a
significant trend in issued today, and furthermore with maturing as
software, we see less and less single customer site systems, and more and
more systems with multiple customer sites, and this again is an issue of
spreading the cost of the same software development costs over many
customers.

I also disagree with the pretext of that article that says these Computer
Systems don't save companies money. I can't think of the technology or
something in the last 30 years that helped businesses to become more
productive than that of the computer.

--
Albert D. Kallal
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
pleaseNOOSpamKallal (AT) msn (DOT) com

#5

Maybe it's not the Pick model that is getting old, maybe it's the Pickies
who are getting old. Anybody here under 50? How many over 60, which Is old
enough to worry most customers?
BobJ

"Albert D. Kallal" <PleaseNOOOsPAMmkallal (AT) msn (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

but most
Pick companies in this space simply died for lack of ability to adapt.

The morals of the story are not just to have good software but 1) to
price it in-line with the expectations of the target audience, 2) to
make your software support the same pretty/frilly features as your
competitors even if you don't believe in such things, and 3) to
position the software as the proper political choice, not just the
right technical/pragmatic choice.

The political choice, and issue of lacking to adapt are certainly an
aspect.

However, another significant trend are area I'd noticed in the business
marketplace is when the software and company running that particular
system is undercapitalized. By under capitalize, I often mean in terms of
personnel.

Of late, a number of pick systems I've seen being dropped or moved on by
longtime pick customers was not because the system did have not the
functionality, and not for lack of features. In fact looking at some of
the recent companies I'd seen dropping pick, it came down to those
companies not having enough personnel and continuity issues. In other
words, the system was beholden to one developer or one contractor.

This is not a whole lot different than having a company that maintains
support for your heating and air conditioning systems, or your
photocopiers, or anything else in the office. If that one person's health
gets sick, or is planning some type of retirement or what ever, then it
becomes a difficult issue to keep that system running. People prefer
choosing a software company with 15 or 20 employees and has some type of
support phone number. In other words, the beholden to one person is
becoming a significant trend in issued today, and furthermore with
maturing as software, we see less and less single customer site systems,
and more and more systems with multiple customer sites, and this again is
an issue of spreading the cost of the same software development costs over
many customers.

I also disagree with the pretext of that article that says these Computer
Systems don't save companies money. I can't think of the technology or
something in the last 30 years that helped businesses to become more
productive than that of the computer.

--
Albert D. Kallal
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
pleaseNOOSpamKallal (AT) msn (DOT) com

#6

On Mar 10, 4:49*am, "Albert D. Kallal" <PleaseNOOOsPAMmkal... (AT) msn (DOT) com>
wrote:

Quote:

I also disagree with the pretext of that article that says these Computer
Systems don't save companies money. *I can't think of the technology or
something in the last 30 years that helped businesses to become more
productive than that of the computer.

Except that in some instances, like a hospital, you could throw a lot
of people at the problem for less money than the capital outlay and
ongoing expenses of their IT systems. Of course, in the US, anything
attached to the medical industry is fantastically overpriced.

--
Kevin Powick

#7

To: RJ
RJ wrote:

Quote:

From Newsgroup: comp.databases.pick

Maybe it's not the Pick model that is getting old, maybe it's the Pickies
who are getting old. Anybody here under 50? How many over 60, which Is old
enough to worry most customers?

For a few more months I'm still the Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything.
(42)

g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
--- Synchronet 3.15a-Win32 NewsLink 1.91
The Retro Archive - telnet://bbs.retroarchive.org

#8

On 03/10/2010 08:01 AM, Gene Buckle wrote:

Quote:

RJ wrote: From Newsgroup: comp.databases.pick

Maybe it's not the Pick model that is getting old, maybe it's
the Pickies who are getting old. Anybody here under 50? How
many over 60, which Is old enough to worry most customers?

51 here, an age I never contemplated reaching, to the the truth.

Quote:

For a few more months I'm still the Answer to Life, The Universe
and Everything. (42)

g.

42? You're a young man!

It's nice to see your interest in the Me-109. A marvelous and very
durable fighter-plane.

[cue Blue Oyster Cult "Me 262"; exit stage-right]
--
Cheers, SDM -- a 21st Century Schizoid Man
Systems Theory project website: http://systemstheory.net
find us on MySpace, GarageBand, Reverb Nation, Last FM, CDBaby
free MP3s of Systems Theory, Mike Dickson & Greg Amov music at
http://mikedickson.org.uk

#9

RJ wrote:

Quote:

Maybe it's not the Pick model that is getting old, maybe it's the
Pickies who are getting old. Anybody here under 50? How many over 60,
which Is old enough to worry most customers?
BobJ

Thirty years ago I was pitching a strategic application, and a friend of
mine was called in and quizzed by my prospect. Asked at one point 'but
what if Cooke gets hit by a truck?', my friend, as I heard of it,
frowned, hmmmed, stroked his chin, sat back, sat up, and said 'Cooke's
pretty tough. but I think he'd die.' The prospect signed up, and we had
a very effective 20 year relationship. Their good decisions, and
confidence in being able to make them, made them businessmen you like to
do business with.

The fear of age is one of the silliest. Which would you rather take
over due to incapacity (earthquake, accident, family stability, failed
health, ...) - an application served from an mv server, or from an sql
server. The stability of mv app vendors should be much higher than that
of their competitors if only based upon the inherent stability of their
apps relative to their competitors' apps' stability. We should have a
lower parts count (lines of code, etc.), higher reliance on tools,
greater visibility into operations. Are there any data measuring the
risks rising from complexity in data system applications? Aren't these
risks lower in mv apps than when using other technologies at the core?
Besides, it takes a long time for age to incapacitate you. Motorcycles
and sex are quick distractors with sometimes terminal consequences.

#10

On Mar 10, 6:51*am, Kevin Powick <kpow... (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Quote:

On Mar 10, 4:49*am, "Albert D. Kallal" <PleaseNOOOsPAMmkal... (AT) msn (DOT) com
wrote:

I also disagree with the pretext of that article that says these Computer
Systems don't save companies money. *I can't think of the technology or
something in the last 30 years that helped businesses to become more
productive than that of the computer.

Except that in some instances, like a hospital, you could throw a lot
of people at the problem for less money than the capital outlay and
ongoing expenses of their IT systems. *Of course, in the US, anything
attached to the medical industry is fantastically overpriced.

--
Kevin Powick
Well, in Canada, the medical industry are overpriced too, we just

can't see it, cause the information is not public. All we know is that
one-third of the tax revenue at both the federal & provincial level
goes to health-care

And that's going to keep climbing

In the US you can see public company (insurance groups ./ hospitals)
profits, costs, etc. - so you know that a hospital is charging 100.00
for a toothbush.

But in Canada, the hospital bill goes to the government for payment
and unless you have public servant, whistle-blower or access-to-
information requests, you don't know the cost of that toothbrush.

Public health care is good in that everyone is covered
Private health care is good because it reduces costs

The problem, with both models, is that the entity paying the bill
(government or insurance group) needs to identify / prevent abuses of
the system. Now maybe we need a MV app for that