This article was written by a guest author, Jason Simon, of SimonDR, Inc.*
There are two opposing movements afoot. For those of us who are computer geeks, of which in veterinary medicine are few and far between, these movements can be considered like the apple / windows battle. Apple fans will argue handily that the “sexy” package isn’t just for show, and Microsoft fans will argue that Windows is just as good and has maximum compatibility. The arguments are: Apple looks good and works fairly well too and Windows works just as well and allows you to get more done.
What’s best? To be honest, they are both pretty good, but one clearly wins when weighing the advantages. Does it cause confusion? You bet.
In digital radiography, this argument, or opposing movements relate to closed and open systems. Having just returned (actually on the plane now writing this through turbulence) from the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) meeting where my company has been exhibiting for longer than I have been alive, I had a revelation: in human medicine, closing a system down would mean not doing business in any developed country. So why is it happening in veterinary medicine? It’s crazy, but it really is happening.
First: a definition of a closed system: your DR system will work with your practice management system, but only if you bought them from the same company. In other words, BigLabCompany has a practice management system that only speaks to BigLabCompany’s DR detector. You can buy them separately, but they refuse to work with any other system. The reason that this is done this way is: BigLabCompany wants to lockdown your revenue for them and them alone. That could actually work to your benefit, but the detractors far outweigh the advantages. For instance: what happens if you are really dissatisfied with your laboratory services or customer service, and you want to leave, but the rest of your systems won’t talk to the other lab services systems. Net result: you’re stuck. Plain and simple stuck.
An open system definition is this: your practice management system is built to accept any imaging system based on internationally accepted standards so that you can choose (Impromed for example – just because I like them) and marry it with any digital radiography system that also supports open standards (like SimonDR – which I own) No bias here right? Wrong. I’m completely biased, but also passionate about doing what is right, not just for the short term, but for the long haul.
In an open system, if your customer service goes away, or your best friend starts working for SimonDR or another open standards supporting digital x-ray company, you can feel free to plug in a different system and you can be sure that it will work together with the rest of the open systems in your hospital. To further clarify what an open system is: they all use a standard called the “dicom” standard which was written in the early 90’s as a way to ensure that all Dicom compliant systems will talk to each other going down the road so that the entire hospital will work smoothly without the need for expensive proprietary bridges. Imagine if your DR system doesn’t talk to your practice management system and your ultrasound won’t talk to anything and your Dicom viewers wouldn’t view CT images from the imaging center up the street and your images couldn’t be communicated except in your hospital. That’s a nightmare of chaotic independent systems that could only be made less chaotic with those expensive bridges. The DICOM standard removes that necessity and cleans up the chaos before it can happen.
The closed solution: control everything and support everything directly and make sure all of the future revenue goes back to the closed company. It’ll work, but lock you down for many many years. One caveat with closed systems: when they lock you down up front, they might give you a better deal in the beginning and make their money back up in years to come.
The open solution: the standard controls the way everything talks to each other and you send your future expenses to the companies you like as you see fit. Open systems might be a little more expensive (or might not), but they afford you the freedom to make your own choices about what is best for your hospital.
An analogy which I have used before: when you but a car, the gasoline used in it is like an open system. You can feel free to go to any gas station and fill up with your brand of choice. If you fall out of favor with that brand, then switch to another gas station. Now, imagine if you bought your car from Citgo and your car could only accept Citgo gas? Citgo is going to give you a discount on the car and save you several thousand dollars. Sounds great right? So, there is another energy crunch and Citgo fires all but one attendant and stops accepting pay-at-the-pump so now filling up your car takes an hour and to top it off, they start blending in more alternative fuels and your gas mileage drops. That deal is not looking so good right now is it?
SimonDR, and several other digital radiography companies support open standards. Impromed and at least one other practice management company support open standards. Talk to your IT people, or your computer geek friends and ask them: should I go to an open system or closed system? If they don’t know enough to answer, have them call me directly or call the folks at Impromed and get the straight open and honest answers. Only together and with open communication can the industry ensure that independent hospitals and business owners can continue doing business their way.
Not to beat a dead horse (absolutely no pun intended), but as an example how open standards transformed my company, 7 years ago we became ISO9001 registered. What that means is that there is an internationally accredited registrar who ensures that we follow strict standards as it relates to customer service and quality management. We are now ISO13485 certified which means that we have the next level of certification. It all results in a quality management and customer service system built around a set of open standards that are generally accepted as good business practices. One ISO9001 company can have good confidence that another ISO9001 company can support them in the way they need. For us, open standards have made my company easier to run and more error free. Am I biased? Yes, but for very good reason. Were it not for our adaptation of ISO9001 and ISO13485, the ultimate in open standards, we would not be the successful company that we are today. (A little hard work helped too.) DICOM open standards are very similar in their intent.
Article footnote: this was written on a Mac, which I would not have if I could not have also loaded Windows on it to ensure that I can use all of my software. And, my true love in computers is Linux. All of our systems ship with Windows7 because I happen to think that it is every bit as good as the best out there.
To learn more about the guest author, Jason Simon or SimonDR, please visit them online at www.simondr.com or call 800-835-3852.
*The article is presented to you by Animal Insides in an unedited format as we felt that the artice has value to the veterinary profession. Hoever, the views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author. If you are reading this and you would like to become a guest authors for a content article, please contact us for more information.
