I'm late to this party because I've been on the road and incommunicado, but here are my 2 cents:
- CMS: this is a critical app and one of the reasons I ended up finding web2py to begin with, even though web2py is neither a CMS nor is there a production-worthy CMS (no slur against KPAX) associated with web2py. CMS is an important functionality for just about any website, so this is definitely a high-priority app to have open- sourced for web2py. - estore: A production-worthy estore would be quite nice. Especially if it would be easy to tie into one's own web2py db of products. Thumbs up to this idea, too. - Wiki: I agree with Joe on this one. Why the heck hasn't the web2py wiki gotten more attention? Why doesn't it a kick-ass web2py app? Why aren't people building out the info in it? What does that say about this community? - Calendar: I just finished a calendar-based scheduling app for a client. It was fun and had its challenges. I'm debating adapting it to one of my own websites. But I'm also looking deeper into Google Calendar. Frankly, it looks like it would make more sense for an example of web2py tapping into Google calendar. The philosophical issue is that most people won't have multiple calendars going at once. Google has achieved black hole mass and has already won the email and calendar battle (even relative to Microsoft). How could web2py even make a dent, here? Why would anyone put their calendar on someone else's website when they already have it in Google Cal, MS Outlook, their Palm Pilot, or their Blackberry? I vote NAY on developing a calendar app. And now the best saved for last: - Medical records keeping: I've seen some postings about this on web2py. This, to me, is the *killer app*. Since I first learned of web2py I've been threatening my friends that I was going to do something about medical record keeping. Web2py seems like the obvious choice for implementation. Let me explain ... For most people, privacy, cost, and ubiquity are the key issues surrounding medical records keeping. - Privacy: web2py offers privacy because it can run on a USB memory stick. In other words, you can keep your records on a memory stick and completely off the internet or your PC. What could be more secure? Google offers free medical records keeping. I tried it. Knock on wood, I'm healthy, so there's not much data I need to enter into Google. Nevertheless, there's no way in hell I'm going to give Google my medical records. (I know, this sounds inconsistent when correlated against my comments about the calendar app above. Still, medical records are more sensitive than when I have to carpool my kid to school, right? And Google already knows too much about me, so there!) - Cost: how about free? Most medical records systems cost $100K+. Why? Beats me. Who pays for it? We all do. Sure, there is the issue of integration with equipment and legacy records. But those issues aren't that difficult to overcome. Really, the issue of medical records keeping is more political than technological, IMHO. (Call me naiive, but there are 3 docs in my family and I've talked to them, most of my best friends are docs and I've taoked to them, I've talked about this issue with all my own personal docs, I've talked to people in government who are responsible for medical records keeping, and to the IT people in docs offices and at hospitals who are responsible for medical records keeping. My conclusion is that it's a political issue -- government, office politics, big insurance politics, and medical community politics.) The way to kill this issue is to make it free. Free as in $0. - Ubiquity: Free is good. Free is different from cheap. Free spreads fast. Free spreads everywhere. Something like >70% of doctors offices in the US don't have electronic medical records (EMR) because it's too expensive. The Obama admin is budgeting greater than $10B (that's billions with a B) to make electronic records ubiquitous. For us Americans out there using web2py, this hits us in the wallet. Frankly, I'm appalled that anyone thinks it will cost $10B+ to do this. As relieved as I am that Obama is president (vs. the previous jackass), I think it's an absurd use of my taxpayer's dollars to subsidise the medical and insurance industries with costly, yet easy to implement software. So I see it as almost a patriotic duty to come up with a strategy that subverts the bureaucracy's tendency to spend my hard- earned money. Towards that end, web2py is an unbelievable opportunity for medical record keeping because it gives us, the consumers of medical services, the opportunity to own and control our own medical records. Web2py is unique among potential implementations in its ability to run off of a USB memory stick. As such, the issue of privacy is moot. The patient can keep his/her own medical record off-line and under lock and key if they so choose. Distribution of a web2py medical record app would be free. If the customer was too poor to have a computer, there could be sites that hosted the medical records and web2py medical app. But frankly, even the sickest patient could fit all their medical records on a 100MB USB memory stick, which is basically free. Patients could download the app (with web2py and SQLite included) onto a local machine, get the doc to copy their record into it, and then bring the USB stick to the doctor's office where they could enable their doctor to see select portions of their record. Same goes for insurance companies and pharmacies. If online, then access could also be controlled using the auth and CRUD functionality. The potential for positive publicity for web2py for a medical records app would be, frankly, priceless. And the savings to the government and medical community would be in the $Billions. As for the insurance and pharma companies, screw them (after all, they screw us all the time). They would benefit from cost savings, too, but who cares? So there's my 2 cents. I'll get off my soap box now. Comments and rants are welcome. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "web2py Web Framework" group. To post to this group, send email to web2py@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to web2py+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/web2py?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
