The state of healthcare in our nation has been in bad shape for quite a while. I will elaborate more on that in a future post. Free Software Magazine brought a new issue to my attention.
The debate between proprietary vs non-proprietary software has been raging on for as long as I can remember. In this article the debate enters the healthcare arena.
Your data or your life | Free Software Magazine:
Intracare is the publisher of a popular practice management system called Dr. Notes. When some doctors balked at a drastic increase in their annual software lease, they were cut off from accessing their own patients’ information.
This situation is completely unconscionable. There can be no truly open doctor-patient relationship when an unrelated third party is the de facto owner of and gatekeeper to all related data.
The article then goes on to suggest some websites that discuss alternate non-proprietary products that doctors can use.
Fortunately, the situation isn’t entirely bleak. New online communities are developing to build and market free software solutions. LinuxMedNews is a regularly updated online forum for discussing industry news. GPLMedicine is a similar site maintained by Fred Trotter, project manager for the Free software ClearHealth management system. A project by Canada’s McMaster University, OSCAR, became the first IT system certified by OntarioMD.