Scott,Below I've answered the questions as best I could without much knowledge of the current system:
What is the project about?Mikhail designed a website several years back using Microsoft Access 2003 which the client (an assisted living facility, which is a branch of Family Services of Westchester, or FSW) is currently using to manage their patients' data (medications, hospital visits, etc.). This data is highly confidential, and must be handled with care ensuring that the data is both safe and secure with respect to the way it is both stored and handled. The website which Mikhail created (back in his high school days) is now outdated, and is no longer practical for the size of the facility's present-day operations. This is why we've been tasked with creating a new faster, more secure, more efficient, and scalable website application (and database) which can satisfy the needs of the organization is its current state and the forseeable future.
The goal is simple, to create such a website which incorporates an appropriate amount of security in order to be HIPAA-compliant (this is a standard for how medical data is stored, used, and handled in the healthcare industry which all such facilities must abide by) and satisfies the needs of the organization (as defined by Susan Sober and her colleagues). These are the two most important aspects of the website, the website MUST be HIPAA-compliant and should be developed very strictly according to the initial requirements given to us as well as ongoing solicited feedback from the organization.
In the end, the website is to be transferred to organization in a way that is both reasonable for the team to do and usable by the organization. It is mutually understood and agreed upon that the product we are delivering is provided as-is, free of charge, and without warranty. This way we will not be held financially, legally, or contractually responsible for the product as well as its continued use (maintenance).
High-level overviewFrom what I understand, we have a backend to the website which stores the data in a MySQL database, and a frontend which makes use of said data and displays it in a meaningful way.
Examples of use-casesThere are many use cases for the website, but some very general examples might include:
Adding/modifying/deleting a patient Adding/modifying/deleting existing patient data Providing feedback to the team Viewing data of a specific patient (for any reason) An overview of the challenges of implementing the systemOther than the obstacles I witnessed with finding a reasonable means for presenting the website (what language to use, etc.) and the means for storing and handling the highly confidential patient data (database, crypto, communication, etc.), I cannot comment on the difficulties faced during development which aren't obvious.
An overview of the solutionsAgain, I cannot comment on this meaningfully since I was not primarily involved in the development of the website.
A description of how each component is implemented (one section per component) and how it interacts with the rest of the system.
Same as above since I was not involved in the development aspect.Sorry for not getting back to you sooner, hopefully this helps you out! Happy holidays, take care!
Regards, Nate On 12/20/2014 4:59 PM, Mikhail Gofman wrote:
P.S. If we could only get an hour of Rob's or Jeremy's time when I am there, I think all of our problems will be resolved. Could you please poke them on it?Hope this helps. Thanks, -MikhailOn Sat, Dec 20, 2014 at 11:59 AM, Nathan Cobb <nathancobb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:nathancobb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:Mikhail, I'll send the password out once I'm at my computer this afternoon. Having you be there would be fantastic, just let me know the time frame and I'll make note of it as I prepare to schedule it. Regarding Scott's write-up, I'll do my best with the questions he gave me, but unfortunately it'll have to wait until at least Monday since I have a lot going on this weekend. If I find a small window before then, I'll give it a shot, but it's likely going to take me a while to gather the information into something that's clear and concise. Thank you all for your time and understanding. Regards, Nate On December 20, 2014 2:58:14 AM Mikhail Gofman <migsoft2@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:migsoft2@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:Dear Nate and Team, Scott is working in his write up, so he needs the info. Nate, please do not apologize! :-) You did a fine job for which we are all thankful! I went ahead and hacked the VM password. I set the new password to...well...because everything submitted to this list gets posted publicly, I will email the password to Nate privately. Nate, could you please email it (without using the mailing list) to all members? I did not make the VM live yet because, once again, I need instructions for doing this -- I remember that many changes were made to it. I have also spoke to FSW folks. Hopefully this will be able to be more accommodating. I will also physically be there this break. It would be great if we could set up a meeting so I can be there to help with the deployment. Hope this helps. Thanks, -Mikhail On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 11:14 PM, Nathan Cobb <nathancobb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:nathancobb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote: Scott, Is there a particular reason why you need this information so suddenly? I can answer general questions about the project for you, but regarding its inner-workings I won't be of much help since I wasn't deeply involved. I developed the first version of the website (very noob-level HTML+PHP), which was replaced with the database team's version which used bootstrap. After that came the 1337ness that is the current version, which was developed primarily by Jeremy and Robert (who are no longer with us) and uses a heavy amount of JavaScript. I was present a few times when they were discussing its creation, and the ideas behind it, but I do not by any means have a working knowledge of the system, unfortunately. At this point our primary concern is deployment, which does not (if I'm understanding correctly) require knowledge of the system necessarily. I'm going to ping Jeremy for the password of the VM (Mikhail is prepared to break into it if necessary), and from there we can test the deployment techniques described by Jeremy briefly in his last email. After things are settled with the VM password, I'll be in contact with Harry about helping with deployment. Once we have a working method, we can attempt to deploy the VM on the FSW system and go from there. I know I've said this before, but please let me apologize to all of you involved once again for how things turned out this semester. It was a result of a lot of miscommunication and timing issues, along with a bit of failure on my part. When things went wrong, I didn't know what to do, and because of that the project suffered. This is a learning experience for us all, myself included, but I apologize if I caused any inconvenience for any of you or wasted your time at all. Having said all that, Scott, if you still require the information you requested, I can do my best to oblige but I wouldn't be able to do it this weekend unfortunately. Regards, Nate On December 19, 2014 7:53:24 PM scott stetzko <scott.stetzko@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:scott.stetzko@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:hey Nate, Sorry to bother you bro but I need for you to answer a few detailed questions for me so I can write a report and some documentation on the project. I know its not your fault not being able to work on the project at all but thats precisely why I need your help. Since i didn't really get to work on it I am lost on a few things. Here are a list of things I need a detailed description of: - What is the project about? - Please give me a high-level overview of the project architecture e.g. database, front-end, etc and how they interact. - examples of user-cases - An overview of the challenges of implementing the system. - an overview of the solutions. - a description of how each component is implemented (one section per component) and how it interacts withe the rest of the system. Please answers these as soon as you can because I need to finish this by next week. Thank you for your help I really appreciate it.-- /*Scott Stetzko*/
