Advanced

Open source needs an attack of the heart

Posted by Scott_Ruecker on · 3 comments
Heise; By Dj Walker-Morgan 		Mail this story
Print this story

Last Friday, I had a heart attack. As I was rushed to the hospital by the superb ambulance crews and through the operating theatre and onwards to the recovery room by the skilled surgeons, one thing stuck in my mind; how badly open source, and software development in general, has let down health care professionals, who I watched handle bundles of notes and forms which contained the crucial patient care information.

Full Story

  Nav
» Read more about: Story Type: News Story

» Get new stories by e-mail: nightly or as they are published

« Return to the newswire homepage

Comments (3)

ComputerBob ·
Quoting:Last Friday, I had a heart attack. As I was rushed to the hospital by the superb ambulance crews and through the operating theatre and onwards to the recovery room by the skilled surgeons, one thing stuck in my mind; how badly open source, and software development in general, has let down health care professionals...
Almost four years ago, I had a stroke that put the entire left side of my body to sleep -- caused by previously undiagnosed diabetes and hypertension -- from which I have since completely recovered (losing over 100 pounds makes a big difference).

I consider myself to be a big Linux and open source advocate, but I have to admit that, throughout that whole terrifying adventure, I never once thought about open source software development.
patrokov ·
Actually, the VA uses one of the best HIS in the world, VISTA which is or was open source. I recall reading about a year ago the government was moving away from open source development regarding VISTA.
DarrenR114 ·
It isn't that Open Source has let down health care professionals - the real obstacle to adoption of Open Source in healthcare offices is the doctors themselves. Their egos get in the way of admitting they made a poor choice in going with MS-Windows (I'm A DOCTOR - I KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT EVERYTHING.)

Post a comment

A free account is needed to post. Write your comment here first: your text is kept in this browser while you sign up or log in, and is waiting for you when you come back.

Your message:
|||||
10
Markdown: **bold**, *italic*, [text](https://link), - lists, > quotes, $x^2$ for math. Formatting help

Sign up and post (it is free)  or  Log in and post