Health Care Software Sourcebook 1997

Aspen Reference Group. Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen Publishers; 1997. 467 pages. $89.00. ISBN 0834209047. Order phone 800-638-8437.

Field of medicine: Medical informatics.

Format: Softcover book.

Audience: Practicing clinicians; researchers; hospital administrators; physician office managers; informaticians; those involved in the selection of enterprise-wide solutions, electronic medical records, and billing; and patient, physician, and nurse educators.

Purpose: To provide health care specialists with a practical, well-indexed compendium of software solutions available for the most common challenges found in the teaching, practice, and business of medicine.

Content: This compendium, which is updated annually, is an excellent sampling of the more prominent medical software packages available. The book is divided into five logically defined sections: software listings, a vendor directory, an application index, a product name index, and a vendor index. The software listings section, the central section of the work, is divided into 21 categories ranging from health management information systems and financial management to patient management, medical records, and home health care. The vendor directory lists contact information for 950 software vendors. The application, product name, and vendor indexes direct the reader to products according to type of application, software product name, and vendor name, respectively.

Highlights: The compromise between breadth and depth of coverage is excellent, and the authors have done a good job of defining software categories. In fact, the categories provided may be more valuable than the book's content in that they give readers examples of exactly what they are looking for. Armed with this information, it is much easier to identify competing vendors in a particular niche. Another highlight of this work is the homogeneity of the software listings for each product, which include a description of the product and information on hardware requirements, application languages, additional equipment required, additional equipment supported, training provided, maintenance, prices of software and licenses, the total number of installed systems, and the date on which the product was first installed.

Limitations: This compendium, also available in electronic form, has two primary limitations. First, with the World Wide Web, it is now possible to collect data on thousands of software vendors as long as one is willing to wade through hundreds of “near hits.” However, even if the Web is used for data collection, this compendium provides the index words that can be invaluable in narrowing an electronic search. The second limitation (virtually impossible to rectify in a publication of this size) is that the information is based not on the experience of the authors but on marketing brochures and verbal communications from the companies offering the software products.

Context: In an age of electronic communications and Web-based marketing, it may seem paradoxical that a compendium of software should appear in printed form. However, the printed form lends credibility to the vendor claims, assuming that vendors are less likely to release egregious errors when their claims are printed in black and white. In the print world, the major competition to this work includes my favorite reference, the annual November issue of MD Computing, which is devoted to vendor and software listings, and numerous booklets published by specialty colleges, such as the American College of Cardiology. The MD Computing resource, although comprehensive, provides a relatively short description of software features and requirements. Conversely, the specialty booklets tend to carry more detailed information but are limited in scope to software packages that have a direct bearing on the particular specialty. Another excellent resource is the National Library of Medicine's Learning Resource Center, whose staff is well versed in the market and can provide vendor and software information over the phone.

Reviewer: Bryan P. Bergeron, MD, Harvard University Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.

Commentary: As a medical informatician, I maintain a library of journals and magazines simply for the advertisements they contain. Before this book was available, it was nearly impossible to locate everything in one publication. It is not perfect-readers will still have to do their homework when comparing and contrasting products-but it is the quickest way to get on the right track.

• Copyright ©2004 by the American College of Physicians