Python for medicine

[Tim Churches]

On Thu, 2003-08-14 at 23:45, ddoc wrote:
> Python, as Zope, underlies some candidate medical record systems.
> 
> Python is also the programming language for at least one system - GNUMed 
> from Australia.

GNUmed is an international effort, with over half the active developers
from Australia, and over half the active developers from Germany, and
contributions from around the world, although Australians are prominent
in teh ranks. You can find lists of other open source health and medical
projects here
http://www.linuxmednews.com/linuxmednews/LMNProjects/Projects/folder_contents and here http://www.minoru-development.com/en/healthlinks.html (the latter list a bit out-of-date) - Python and Zope do indeed figure prominently, but not dominantly. M (also known as MUMPS) forms the basis of one very large health software system - Vista, used by the US Dept of Veterans Affairs to run their hospitals and clinics. PHP powers a number of Web-based systems, and there is one family physician system written in Tk/TCL. Java also figures prominently. So yes, Python has a significant presence in the open source health and medical software scene, but does not rule the roost by any means.

Inthe proprietary health and medical software sector, I've not heard of
Python being used anywhere - I'd be interested to learn of any
instances.

> But the specific  slot I see Python as particularly suited to is as a 
> generic scripting language for use in (many) medical record and decision 
> assist systems.
> 
> Currently there are a variety of these, and they tend to have individual 
> scripting languages or lack them altogether, partly because their origins 
> are in the dawn of time.
> 
> There is a certain amount of work available on the Web on what could be 
> generic objects, such as the Arden Syntax, a way of defining the steps in 
> making a decision.
> 
> Rendering such things into Python modules, and leaving it up to the 
> individual (proprietary or Open) system suppliers to make use of them and 
> provide the lower level piece that interfaces to the specific system in 
> question seems like a good way to go, to me.

I suggest that you take this discussion to the openhealth mailing list,
where a lot of very knowledgeable health and medical informatics people
hang out - and some of them are Pythonistas. To join the list, send an
e-mail to openhealth-list-request at minoru-development.com with
"subscribe" as the subject. An archive of past messages is available at
www.mail-archive.com

-- 

Tim C

PGP/GnuPG Key 1024D/EAF993D0 available from keyservers everywhere
or at http://members.optushome.com.au/tchur/pubkey.asc
Key fingerprint = 8C22 BF76 33BA B3B5 1D5B  EB37 7891 46A9 EAF9 93D0


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 196 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/attachments/20030815/66953026/attachment.sig>