First Let me introduce my self. My name is Dr Sreeram Penna, I am trainee surgeon in Liverpool Surgical Rotation, United Kingdom. My idea to start a venture for custom drupal distribution for Health came as I was reading this Dries post. Health care industry is complex and very diverse. Its IT needs are broad. In my opinion the scope of a health care CMS are
•From Blogs by doctors and other health care professionals.(who require simpler installation, help with customising templates to individual needs)(I know that other blogging software is there to meet that demands but many health bloggers are yet to migrate from blogger.com and if we show commitment as health care CMS I am sure many will migrate here)
•Promotional websites for individual clinicians.
•Community websites for doctors, nurses, and other health professionals.
•Community website for General Practitioners or Family physicians which involve information gathering, dissemination and patient discussions via a secure website. I note such websites need to be designed with higher security as confidentiality is utmost important. ( An example of this kind of venture is patient accessing their own clinical records through a secure website maintained by their General Practitioner or a Family physician).
•Intranets for GP surgeries, Departments, Hospitals, Medical research institutes.
•Websites and Extranets for GP surgeries, Departments, Hospitals, Medical research institutes.
•Websites for various professional bodies in medicine. (These are numerous and countless. And most of them are charity organisations.)
•Educational websites relating to medical field like training websites, medical journals, online Continuing Professional Development courses. (Example of such online training groups is maintained by me for surgical trainees, EYST group )
•Patient Info websites, Self help groups websites
The needs of a health care driven websites are slightly different from other technology related ventures. The installations need to be simple and maintenance should not be tiring. Drupal Health CMS need to be customised so that it reflects the health industry as such. This may require custom modules on top of basic drupal modules.
All comments and corrections are welcome
Sreeram Penna