Are you seriously suggesting a business put their contacts in the hands of Google, who has reportedly been totally capricious with account actions in the past and is notoriously difficult to contact when problems arise?

> and open-source is stuck at being hobbyists if there is no corporate sponsorship

Corpo sponsorship required for success? I guess I better tell all the open-source projects being used by millions that they're just hobbyists now.

> The problem [...] everything digital [...] Who do I sue, and who has insurance, if something goes wrong?

I have heard of analog world nostalgia, but you refer to the pre-digital age as if you didn't live through it. It's easier to locate someone today than ever before.

There’s no vendor here that they can sue if they were paying for a product and deploying that, but that’s a different situation and the hospital, frankly, won’t care about that. Who their supplier subsequently sues isn’t their problem.

Even if the vendors are only half accurate about the solution they offer, by being paid suppliers, they are on the hook (to varying degrees). These systems are highly customized and serious headaches arise from interoperability and security. If some of that can be shifted to a vendor, it's a net positive insofar as the IT department and the compliance departments are concerned.

Some healthcare organization have invested in the technology side and become leaders in innovation but those are the exception.

There are lots of organizations that provide a throat-to-choke-as-a-service, e.g. Red Hat.

And there's plenty of consultancies which will support OSS and give you support if you need it and be your scapegoat. Red Hat, Suse, IBM come to mind and there's many others...

You sue the Red Hat-like support company with whom you ostensibly signed a contract.

If your question is who does the Red Hat-like support company sue if they want accountability for the code they are leveraging, I guess I don't understand the question or its relevance. E.g., with regard to proprietary code, who does Microsoft microsoft when Microsoft microsofts Microsoft? (Fun to write, but I don't think that sentence really makes sense.)

(1) you carry the risk or

(2) find someone that operates the software for you (on premise or SaaS) and they may also carry the risk for the premium you pay them.

There's absolutely no way that dentist will have a well-negotiated contract with SLA's and damage compensation with Google. The extent of their business relationship is that the dentist clicked a checkbox and put in their credit card details. Google does not even know they exist.

If Gmail loses all your email and accidentally kills your entire business, the absolute best outcome is a refund of your $10/month business subscription fee. The idea that they could in any way be held responsible is ludicrous.

Beyond the wire formats, in order to eliminate the need for paperwork provider organizations also have to participate in data exchange networks. These include TEFCA, Carequality, eHealth Exchange, and some smaller regional HIEs. It all works fairly well when used correctly but many provider organizations continue to waste administrative effort and abuse their patients by failing to take advantage of the available technology. Like in many cases the necessary functionality is already built in to their EHR/PMS software but they simply don't turn it on or train their users.

> hospitals use EHR to maximize billing

As a person who has worked extensively with hospitals and CHCs helping them integrate technology, this is false.

EHR is being used because it's required - both by payors and regulation/law. I can think of zero instances where an organization switched to EHR without being forced by a deadline from an outside source.

( Yes, seriously. )

Many many profiles are tagged NSFW, its' not clear why, I can't imagine the majority of those have done so deliberately, perhaps it's automatic for anyone who's posted any NSFW posts ever. ( Which includes people doing so to be funny such as someone posting a huge loss in a sports sub as NSFW. )