MailMinder: taming DHCP's mailman interface

While the Department of Veteran's Affairs Decentralized Hospital Computer Program (DHCP) is one of the most widely disseminated and successful hospital information systems in existence, it currently is accessed through a user interface which is not as mature as the rest of the system. This interface is a VT-100 compatible, character oriented interface using menus accessed by typed commands for feature access. This project demonstrated that a mature graphical user interface (MailMinder) can be successfully used as a "front-end" to DHCP. MailMinder is completely compatible with the existing unmodified DHCP electronic mail program, Mailman. MailMinder allows the user to be more efficient than the current interface and offers additional features over the current mail system. The program has undergone evaluation and limited deployment at five separate sites. The feature set of this program and its operation will be shown at this demonstration. The demonstration has implications for all current hospital information systems.