MicroFour and StrataFrameVersion 2

As a development team, we would like to take the opportunity to address the mounting questions and concerns regarding MicroFour and StrataFrame V2.

Why the Delay?

As many of you may know, StrataFrame was created in response to our need for an application framework to support our ongoing application development, primarily PracticeStudio, our large Electronic Medical Records suite. Shortly after our development began on the .NET version of PracticeStudio using StrataFrame, the US Government became interested in regulating Electronic Medical Records software.  This process began through the endorsement of the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT) and their independent certification and culminated with the incorporation of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH)enacted through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).   

When CCHIT was formed, doctors stopped buying EHR systems unless they were CCHIT Certified.  While attempting to follow the market and certify PracticeStudio through CCHIT, the Great Recession began, and ARRA was signed into law.  The CCHIT certification essentially became null and void and our associated development was scrapped as we shifted to meet the certification requirements of the HITECH program.  The HITECH Act requires medical providers to use a certified Electronic Health Record system and demonstrate “Meaningful Use” or they are penalized through reduced Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements.  With its enactment, the medical industry was thrown into complete chaos.  Where doctors were only reluctant to by a non-CCHIT certified product before, they were suddenly told they couldn’t get paid unless they bought a HITECH certified product.  And of course, with the efficiency of the US Government the requirements for certification were not released for a full year after the panic began. 

The new laws and regulations required much of our development team to work 6-7 day weeks—for two solid years! We received a complete certification for HITECH Stage 1 and sales started coming in again, but the marketplace was permanently damaged. 

We currently spend roughly 25% of our development time meeting government regulations that bring us no revenue.  For long periods of time over the past 6 years, that number has been as high as 100%. The Meaningful Use program has been affectionately dubbed “Meaningless Abuse”by the medical community—and rightly so. The attrition rate for medical software vendors has been nearly 40% as many have not been able to make the curve.  We made the curve and have risen to the top of the class, but this shift in requirements has put a big dent into our StrataFrame V2 development.

Is MicroFour Strong and Healthy?

Praise the Lord, yes! MicroFour is stronger than it ever has been, but I am not going to lie,it was a fight to keep everything together through all of the regulations and turmoil that the government created over the years.  Going through the “dark ages” when no medical clinic would buy any medical records software—nearly a 2 year period—while at the same time having to write massive amounts of code and go through rigorous certification processes was a little scary. But we came out on top and MicroFour is growing.  In fact, we will introduce a few new development team members later on.  We now have more developers than we ever have, and some have been with us for several years now and will be very involved with StrataFrame V2 as it rolls out.

How much progress has been made on StrataFrame V2?

In a word: lots.  To continue StrataFrame development while trying to obtain and maintain our HITECH certifications, primary development was moved after-hours, to Trent and Ben’s home offices.  While progress has been slower than we would like, it has allowed us to “keep our heads in it” and make significant progress along the way. 

We recently received the first good news in several years; the final HITECH certification, Stage 3, has been delayed.  The government has used up the $30 Billion that was allotted for the HITECH program, causing the Stage 3 implementation to be pushed back by at least 1-2 years. This is allowing us to bring StrataFrame back into primary development,so we can complete the remaining pieces needed before it is released.

Why did you go Dark?

Every time we would put out a timeline we missed it.  So, right, wrong, or indifferent, we took the silent approach.  Rather than releasing dates that our StrataFrame users would try to depend on, we put our heads down and kept moving forward to get it done as quickly as possible.  Our biggest mistake was not communicating with our user base the external forces impacting the release of StrataFrame V2 and the assurances that development on StrataFrame V2 was proceeding.  We apologize for that and will do a much better job moving forward!

Do You Promise there will be StrataFrame V2?

Yes,yes, and yes!  While we need it for ourselves, we realize that releasing StrataFrame makes it a more robust and feature-rich product.  There are features in StrataFrame V1 that we use daily and would never have thought to add them in if not for a request from the community. As we write new code for PracticeStudio and have been working on SF V2,we long to use the new framework.  Not only the framework, but the new features of the Database Deployment Toolkit which uses a file-based structure for the projects and source control plugins allowing branching and merging to be handled through your source control system.

So what is inStrataFrame Version 2?

StrataFrame Version 2 is much deeper than StrataFrame V1.  This time around, we went the direction of full object relational mapper and used entities and entity collections for the client-side data storage. Some of the fun features we have incorporated:

• Entity/Collection model

• LINQ adapter for filling Entity Collections

• UI Testing framework using code injection rather than accessibility

• Database independent query engine

• Outlined Query Mapper

• Entity inheritance (i.e. Contact -> Employee ->SalesPerson, saves persist to all 3 tables and queries join all 3 tables transparently)

• Unlimited, multi-level undo and system-wide undo

• EntityCollectionViews for live filtering and sorting