BudDC,
I find myself agreeing with much of what you have said. Bravo! Unfortunatley, I don't agree with it all. Let's take a look.
Now I know we tend to expect this software to be as reliable as a hammer and nail. However, after about thirty years of writing and using software in medical practice I have learned that it requires me to pause and to think carefully on how to implement and use a peice of software. I have also learned that it makes a world of difference how one maintains your hardware and operating systems.
Correct on all counts. I spend a great deal of time, when I'm writing software, asking myself how a feature shoudl behave for the end user. In almost all cases, when I spend a few extra moments pondering these things and tweaking our program, the users who end up getting the software in the end get a better program that requires less time and effort on their part to use. This means, by definition, that a little extra time on my part saves more money for the company. My boss gets infuriated with me on this sometimes as he wants everything right now, but that's fine because I would rather have him a little upset now over deadlines than way upset later when something doesn't work and clients are getting peeved. Not to mention the fact that his getting infuriated is actually half the fun.
As you know, it is a miracle that Windows works at all!! I see physician's offices all the time where computers are loaded up with all kinds of bloated software, people doing all kinds of crazy email, and people working social media. Complexity courts disaster in Windows systems.
If you can't take care of your computer then it is important to get your own tech consultant who knows how and has a proven track record of careful and thoughtful maintenance....and pay for it. If your hardware and OS are well maintained then you at least have a decent chance that whatever EMR you use might acutally work and be reliable.
All Windows software today is buggy and fragile and requires great care to use properly. It saves time but also requires some of your time to learn it's complexities. Tech support is necessary at times, but I beleive that we tend to cry help too soon and too frequently. Most computers you see in homes and offices NO NOT WORK because users have not put in the effort to learn the pitfalls of this new tool.
No matter how much you spend on tech support or what EMR you own, reliability will not be acheived unless you pause, take a deep breath and focus on computing. Someday computers and software will be bullet proof but we have beeen Microsoft's beta tester for thirty or more years with no end in sight. So get used to it.
This is where we begin to part ways. You are quite correct in that most offices do not maintain their hardware and software as they should. I constantly see offices with 6+ year old computers and software that hasn't been patched in years. I see copies of Windows XP still on service pack 1, anti-virus software that is 3 or more versions behind and the subscription lapsed years ago. I also see all kinds of crapware because the office bought cheap home computers instead of business class machines. The list goes on. On these points, I agree.
The divide occurs when discussing Windows. When considering the millions combinations of hardware and software that Windows must support, and it has to support it all securely, I think Microsoft is doing a great and totally fantastic job. This isn't to say Windows doesn't have its little issues, it does, and I'll totally agree that back in the Windows NT 4.0 days Microsoft Windows wasn't much good at all. Believe it or not, back in those days I was a Linux guy. I actually hated Windows.
But then, things began to change. With the release of Service Pack 4 for Windows NT, I noticed a substantial increase in quality. Also, instead of just bitching about Microsoft, I started actually analyzing blue screens to see what was causing them. In truth, I was just looking for more ammunition to fire at Redmond, but I found much to my surprise that the vast majority of blue screens I was experiencing were due to faulty NIC drivers - especially from Intel.
When Microsoft released Windows 2000, and upon seeing the divisions and horrific issues growing in the open source community which are a different story entirely, I made the switch. I completely dumped Linux and open source and went full on Microsoft. The quality was there at along last - at least better than any Linux I saw - and Windows would finally run months instead of just days without crashing.
Things really took off when Service Pack 2 for Windows XP was released. Service Pack 2 was, for all intents and purposes, a complete re-release of Windows that everyone got for free. Security vastly improved as did stability. I started doing more research into application vendors of the time that complained about Service Pack 2 for XP and discovered why they were complaining - their poorly written application(s) broke all kinds of rules, many of which were inexcuseable. These were, after all, commercial apps that people paid good money for. What got me started on this "crusade" was when I tried to run a user as a standard user and got this error from Quickbooks:
You must be a member of the Power User's Group or Administrator's Group to run this software. That error, along with many other things I kept digging up, further drove me to the conclusion that much of the problems people blamed Windows for were actually the result of poorly written applications that, in many cases, cost way more than Windows.
With all that being said, I encourage you to check out the following blog posts from Raymond Chen and Larry Osterman. Raymond Chen is a developer on the Windows Shell team (the explorer shell which is the start menue and desktop) and Larry Osterman is a programmer on the Windows Sound team. Both men have been with Microsoft since before Windows 95. I think you'll find these interesting.
Raymond Chen: Why is there no programmatic access to the start menu pin list?
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2003/09/03/54760.aspxRaymond Chen: Why does explorer eject a CD after you finish burning it?
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2005/06/10/427696.aspxRaymond Chen: The Decoy Control Panel
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/01/10/511201.aspxLarry Osterman: Why does Microsoft Time Bomb its Beta Releases?
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/larryosterman/archive/2005/08/10/450173.aspxLarry Osterman: The Last Consumer Operating System Written in My Lifetime
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/larryosterman/archive/2005/11/17/494007.aspxDo read those blogs at your leisure. They are chocked full of useful information that will explain many mysteries to you, as they have me.
JamesNT
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