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Why free and open source software
in the health field?
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Jorge Raúl Rodríguez Medico, Informatica Médica |
Free Health Paradigm
Medical care is an inherent benefit to people and must be supported by the state. This means that it is a benefit proper to the individual and therefore it belongs to the individuals as a whole, which is represented by society. Accordingly Health is, in the abovementioned terms of medical care, a benefit of society; that is to say, it belongs to the Community. Health is a right of the Community.
Health care providing institutions should be at the service of society and cover their demands for prevention and medical care. Public institutions are supported by the community as such, through taxes and other governmental regulations. All this leads to understand Health Care from a philosophical, ethical and practical point of view as absolutely Free. Health cannot be bound to any private interests at all. Understanding this posture allows going through a path of absolute freedom in public Health Care and the medical care of the population.
Free and open source software for Free Health
Having understood free health paradigm and bearing in mind how important informatic tools are in current hospital systems, what kind of software would be the most appropriate to build these systems?
Since public Health is supported by community contribution, software as a whole should belong to the Community. There is only one standard in which software as a whole fulfills such a requirement: Free and Open Source Software. In previous lectures, the reasons why free and open source software is ideal for these developments have been widely explained, but access to the source code is a virtue impossible to overcome.
Besides, free and open source software features more stability, reliability and flexibility in complex informatic structures and networks.
And in our beloved Latin America for another main reason: because there is much free and open source software free of charge, under GPL license of open source. Moreover, because, in this very moment, there is Linux or BSD high-level and varied software, also free of charge, that adjusts to basic work in the health field. With free and open source software the topic of licenses and legal software comes to an end.
You, Hospital Director, Chief of Area, etc., may think…?
Well, how do I turn into Linux of BSD? How do I move my work? Will I adjust to it? Will users from the hospital adjust to it? And a never ending string of questions that belong more to fear of change and of the unknown, which is typical of human beings.
I am not a psychologist, but I can guarantee that free and open source software, Linux and BSD have not killed anyone with fear or desperation. But I have seen many a great tantrum due to blue screens from some popular OS and some crashes, with a huge loss of information, systems crashes, viruses, worms, Trojans and even cases of neurosis, anxiety, hysteria and depression due to a feeling of impotence. How much are you willing to pay to your therapist? Why people have to depend on an unstable system for their care? Do not they have, maybe, the right to the best informatic system since they pay for it through taxes?
It is up to you…
Talking about Linux…
Linux is more and more easy to use and for that we must thank the development groups who take great care to accomplish an easy product for users. The last kernel (operative system core) not only supports USB, but it has the capacity to recognize plug and play devices made essentially for Windows as well.
Using Linux you can listen to music, play games, connect to the internet “seriously” without system crashes, burn a CD or use a Zip device, use your scanner or printer, and even some Win modems… Do you think is not enough?
Besides all this, you can use your office files from MS Office without problems using OpenOffice or KOffice, you can design in 3D using Blender, create charts using CADs, create LaTex files of postscript or PDF type, or create images or logos using GIMP, create flowcharts using Dia, zip files in various formats using 7zip, edit your audio files using Audacity, write your documents in AbiW ord, your spreadsheets using Gnumeric, chat using Xchat or communicate with other users via Internet using Gaim and much more…
In a network, you will feel that you are really making good use of the system. Linux allows a unique stability that characterizes UNIX. You purchase or get a Linux license and install it in all the computers you want without any legal problem. This is the same for almost all software packages that work in Linux or are developed for it. Furthermore, thanks to the work by the BioLinux Group, you have Salux, a GNU/Linux distribution especially design for hospitals, and the custom development for Latin America of informatic systems for hospitals and Telemedicine absolutely free of charge.
Thank you very much.
For more information visit http://saludlibre.org
Publication: Mes 2005
This document is published under the FDL license
(GNU Free Documentation
License, by its Spanish acronym. Version 1.2, November 2002)
of the Free
Software Foundation. The copyright belongs to the authors. For further
details go to: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/fdl.txt
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