The First Alberta OSCAR Users Group Meeting

Well,

The first Annual Alberta User's Group meeting is scheduled to take place at 10:00 a.m. at the Grand Wailea Hotel in Maui, Hawaii on March 19th, 2009.

It looks like there will be only one attendee this year.

Features of this year's OSCAR experiences will be conveyed by interpretive hula.

Hopefully there will be more attendees next year.

JF

Oh, for Fork's sake!

I just learned that OSCAR development isn't something as simple as getting/hiring a programmer to make the changes that you want.

This apparently results in something called a "forked" version of OSCAR.  Forked versions are generally considered "bad" by open source groups.

In fact, I've learned so far that by doing things without the involvement of the OSCAR development in general....I would be considered a bloody, no-good "motherforker"!

Not wanting to do that, I found a list of the officially accepted development process for getting OSCAR modified.  I've done most of the initial steps...and have discovered that the "critical"step (step "f") needs me to find funding.

I tried the AMA, the POSP, the Primary Care Network, Alberta Health, etc.....but nobody wants to fund it (although they all think that it is a good idea).....so....I'm going to "Self" fund this with my own money.  Hopefully I'll find a way to get it back one day.  We'll see if the kids can tell whether or not they're eating generic Kraft dinner......will know if the cat disappears....

I also had to learn what a "PLONE" site was....this is an important aspect of OSCAR development.....I STILL don't know what the heck a Plone site is.....but I'm going to watch the video (click on the link).  I think that I'm going to feel very smart after I watch the video...

Next steps are to acquaint my programmer with the development community.....

JF

What's new

While I haven't blogged...I've learned a LOT.

I met with a really good guy who is a very talented and "high level" programmer.  He patiently spent some time with me to open my pea brain to the "real scope" of bringing OSCAR to Alberta.

Current tasks that I've started on:

1)  Filling out the Alberta Health H-Link paperwork to get a key fob so I can access the Alberta Health test server for the billing module.

2)  Filling out the Calgary Lab Services paperwork so I can do the same thing to get HL7 lab data into OSCAR

3)  Met with "Da guy" that is capable of doing this whole thing

4)  Emailed my accountant to see if I can fund this project personally under the new CCA (Capital Cost Allowances Program) with CRA that will hopefully allow me to deduct 100% of hardware & software costs until Feb. 2011.

5)  Had another look at my hardware requirements:  I'm going to postpone all of that and play with OSCAR on the Programmer's server (he installed it!).

6)  Restarted the process of getting part B done on my PIA (Privacy Impact Assessment).  Part A is complete.  The PCN (Primary Care Network) will help me with this.

More soon!