IMIA Open Source Group to co-sponsor LMN Award

The International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) will be co-sponsoring the Linux Medical News Freedom Award to be given at this years American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Open Source Working Group meeting on Monday November 13th at the Hilton Washington Towers in Washington, D.C. United States: “We are pleased to announce that, as from this year, the Open Source Health Informatics Working Group (OSWG) of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) will co-sponsor the Annual Linux Medical News Freedom Award.” Read more for the full announcement. Note that the Linux Medical News Freedom Award is not an officially sponsored award of AMIA but it should be.

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OpenVistA� EHR in Midland

This article has a great write-up on Midland Memorial Hospital’s use of Redhat Linux and Medsphere’s OpenVista�. Quoted from the article: “This year, Midland Memorial Hospital in Midland, Texas, became the first community hospital in the country to adopt Open Source-based electronic health records (EHR). The implementation reflects the emergence of Open Source alternatives in healthcare applications as well as the growing movement to computerize patient medical records to reduce costs and improve patient care.” Editor’s note: 10/19/06 The author of this Case Study is Medsphere’s Vice President of Sales and marketing. Read Dr. Ho’s comment about the article neglecting to mention that OpenVistA� is not Open Source.

Editorial: Is Medsphere an Open Source Company or Not?

After years of publicly saying they are an Open Source company, and the ‘leading provider of Open Source software for the healthcare industry’, Medsphere Corp. has yet to release their core product OpenVista� as Open Source. It is entirely their right to use the Veterans Affairs VistA codebase, modify, rewrite and not release it to the VistA community. However, holding forth as loudly and as publicly as they have that they are an Open Source company while not releasing their core software, makes me question the sincerity of their claim of being the ‘leading provider’ of Open Source. Especially in the face of suing the founders of the company for many millions of dollars because they actually released company developed software as open source on Sourceforge.

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Open Source Medications Database

Uversa was recently contracted by the Primary Care Coalition of Montgomery County Maryland to conduct a feasibility assessment determining whether it is possible to build an Open Source medications database. The goal was to use only public domain data to produce a result that is commensurate with what is commercially available. They deserve a large amount of credit for consistently funding and actively creating open source solutions to public and community health problems. A summary of findings are in the body of the post. We are currently looking for an appropriate place to publish a formal paper of the results. If you have useful information on public domain medications information (especially warning stickers or patient information sheets) or may be able to assist in funding please contact us at clearhealth@uversainc.com . All feedback and questions are welcome.

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Openoffice.org Template & Clipart Contest

The Openoffice.org Documentation Project is holding a competition for templates and
clipart sponsored by Worldlabel.com, and there is prize money! We can use templates for the medical and healthcare industry.

The goal is to increase our trove. Frankly, we don’t have enough; users are feeling deprived. That means over 50 million people. You can help change that… and also maybe win some money. For more informations: Documentation Project