Open Source for Healthcare
Connecting disparate healthcare systems continues to be an intractable issue. Competition between vendors has actually created a roadblock to successful exchange of data information.
Complex software, such as the Linux Operating System, has been developed using Open Source methodologies. Using Open Source for developing these systems has resulted in better solutions that are easier for end-users to use and manage.
This model also distributes the task of supporting different hardware to the developers who own the hardware. In healthcare, there is a problem of hardware support extending to the maintenance of the many healthcare vocabularies that exist since, like hardware, there is no standard. Collaboration within an Open Source community is the best way to tackle these problems.
In this spirit of Innovation, Misys is proud to announce that we are making our IHE library public to the developer community.
What is the advantage of this step? Allowing developers to view this type of material helps them to understand how programmers approached a specific problem, which often makes it easier to identify problems in their own programs that use Open Source software.
Open Source involves a collaborative approach and a volunteer effort by developers. It’s also a political philosophy about user’s rights and licenses that grant royalty-free rights to users.
Open source is about doing things in a transparent way to drive higher quality and open standards much faster. Everybody needs to join in the development effort with Open Source. And we encourage and invite all software vendors (proprietary as well as open) to help us in this initiative. Together, we will solve the interoperability issues that impair the efficiencies needed to improve healthcare delivery.
For more information on Open Source for healthcare, download this primer. While prepared in 2006, this information can still provide insightful, relevant information on the most important tenants of an Open Source approach and what it can accomplish.
- Contact a Misys representative to learn more about Open Source.
"The concept of a Healthcare Connected Community is one where care is enhanced, costs are reduced and lives are saved. But this can only work when the critical information that safeguards a patient’s health is readily available. What we’re seeing is that the shift toward the widespread adoption of Healthcare Information Technology is swift, dramatic—and presents whole new challenges for this industry. We must all work together to facilitate true interoperability, not throw roadblocks in its path. That’s the only way that the vision of a nationwide—and hopefully worldwide—Connected Healthcare Communities will become a reality."— Mike Raymer, Senior Vice President of Solutions Management for Misys Healthcare Systems