Quick Tour
Medsphere.org is a community gathering place where healthcare administrators, clinicians, developers and enthusiasts can interact, share, and collaborate in the largest ecosystem in healthcare.
Just as Medsphere.org is community, so are the individual spaces within the site. Medsphere.org documents, discussions, and blogs are associated with these communities, each of which focuses on a particular project, such as development of OpenVista CIS; medical specialty, like the Laboratory; or administrative topic, such as Regulation. You're welcome to participate in any community that interests you. The organization of the site is an effort to delineate concepts so you're less likely to be distracted by things you're not interested in.
Administrators
What does Medsphere.org offer administrators and how can they contribute? The detailed answer to that question will certainly demonstrate the tantalizing potential of the community. OpenVista presents many opportunities for administrators with regard to practice and financial management, grants, and state and federal regulations. Administrators will also want to exchange data on healthcare information technology beyond OpenVista. What other Open Source applications might interface with the core OpenVista clinical tools to enhance quality of care? The Medsphere.org tool set enables administrators to start a blog on federal grants, post a document detailing new state regulations, or ask a question about effective cost-cutting measures, among myriad topics in the Administrative area.
Clinicians
As all hospital employees know, these are complex and unique facilities, each guided by local norms and workflow processes. A lack of standardization, often identified as an industry weakness, becomes a strength on Medsphere.org as clinicians use the Specialties community to compare information. A hospital in Texas uses OpenVista to improve its emergency room triage process. Where that information might have remained in a silo previously, now the clinicians in Texas can share their development with other healthcare providers; the information benefits more patients than it could have otherwise. Blogs, documents, and discussions will enable clinicians to disseminate more broadly the valuable insight gained from daily process improvement.
Developers
Software developers will naturally gravitate to the Projects area of Medsphere.org. By clicking on a project name, developers can drill down into the community and a typical Open Source project home page: a description of the project, language and license; release notes; feature lists; screenshots; and a link to downloads. As the community develops, each space will provide the interested developer with all the information necessary to understand and make a contribution to ongoing development. As with any other community on Medsphere.org, each Project space contains documents, discussions, and a project blog. In the future, also look for direct access to project bug trackers and source code repositories.
Enthusiasts
New to healthcare, software, or Open Source and unsure about where to start? Early confusion is no long-term obstacle to participation! The best initial approach is to pick a community focused on what interests you and start a discussion. If you need information, you can mark your discussion post as a question and a special icon indicates that you are awaiting a response. If you ever get stuck, the Help and Feedback area will point you in the right direction and get you involved more quickly. Medsphere.org is an organic community that values experiences and perspectives of all stripes. You may not know how you will contribute in the beginning, but the opportunity will soon present itself.
Documents, Discussions, and Blogs
Documents: Research, Create, Collaborate
Need to find an answer or research a particular topic? Documents allow you to browse FAQs, Guides, Documentation and other content in a wiki-like structure where related information is easily linked together and searchable across Medsphere.org If you have a solution to a challenge, whether it is workflow, configuration or customization, it can easily be documented within Medsphere.org so other members can benefit from your experiences. Further, documents can be used as a collaborative medium allowing teams of contributors to work together before publishing the final document.
For further information on Documents, see the following FAQ:
Discussions: Gather Opinions, Ask or Answer, Document for the future
Discussions can be used to host free-ranging conversation topics. Gathering opinions amongst a group of administrators or clinicians is as easy as crafting a compelling topic and voicing an opinion. Need an answer? Easily search previous discussions or ask a new question. You can even mark answers to your questions as helpful or correct (i.e., a solution that worked for you). Discussions can be converted into Documents for future readers.
For further information on Discussions, see the following FAQ:
Blogs: Publish, Trendset, Offer your vision
Blogs are used for many purposes in this day in age. At their core they are a platform from which you can easily publish your opinions and vision. Medsphere uses our blogging engine to post site news, tutorials, technical information and even maintain a database of related news articles. We expect the community will use this engine as their own, to generate the ideas and solutions to power the OpenVista healthcare platform into the future.
For further information on Blogs, see the following FAQ:
Still uncertain of the difference between these tools, here's a quick comparison:
Next Steps
To participate in discussions, create documents, and post to blogs, you'll need your own account, so create an account now if you don't already have one.
Here's some additional help topics to get you started:
