GNUmed 0.2.8.0 released

A report generator to visualize query results with gnuplot has been added. Exception handling has been improved. The Snellen Chart has been reactivated. KVK handling has officially been included. More hooks and an improved example hook script were added. Demographics handling has been extended to now really support multiple names, addresses, comm channels, and external IDs. Furthermore, there are lots of GUI-accessible configuration options that were always there in the backend but didn’t have a frontend to them. File format handling in document management has seen improvements.

Open Letter to RWJ, PeaceHealth and Shared Care Plan

Updated 12/21/07: a PeaceHealth official has contacted me and they are open to licensing this software under a Free/Open Source license. Details as they occur.

Dear Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, PeaceHealth/Shared Care Plan

Recently a version of the Shared Care Plan software surfaced in Houston, Texas. I have read the End User Licensing Agreement (EULA)

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OpenClinica 2.2 Provides Enhanced Features for Popular Open Source Electronic Data Capture Software

OpenClinica version 2.2 is now available for download. Full press release after the Read More break.

(Cambridge, MA) December 18th, 2007 – Akaza Research announces a new production release of the OpenClinica clinical research software designed for electronic data capture and clinical data management. This new release provides a long list of enhancements across numerous areas of the software. Highlights include:

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O’Reilly: Open Source Licenses Are Obsolete

Tim O’Reilly blogs that open source licenses are obsolete because of software as a service and that open services licenses are needed: ‘…And that, after all, was my message: not that open source licenses are unnecessary, but that because their conditions are all triggered by the act of software distribution, they fail to apply to many of the most important types of software today, namely Web 2.0 applications and other forms of software as a service…’ This echoes my January 11, 2007 article ‘Browser Based EMR’s Threaten Software Freedoms’ here: ‘…Proprietary, browser based EMR/EHR’s have the possibility for the provider to control the customer in ways that previous generation LAN based EMR/EHR’s can only dream about. Privacy abuse, security holes, the ultimate in vendor lock-in and EMR/EHR monopolies is more possible than ever before…’

Medsphere Consultant Speaks Out

Apparently, Joel West has just heard about the Medsphere vs. Shreeve settlement. He is apparently no longer dreading a subpoena. (I was actually looking forward to it myself…) He is notably critical of the VC firms involved. From the article: …Even if the lawsuit is over, IMHO this sordid mess leaves the VCs with a permanent black mark. From 2002-2006, they invested $12 million in a company whose strategy was always to release open source, and then they wholeheartedly backed the decision both to fire the officers who released open source and to sue them. Were the investors (Azure Capital, Thomas Weisel, Wasatch) incompetent in not knowing what an “open source company” meant? Did they panic when deployments ran behind schedule? Were they duplicitous? All of the above?

Cathedral vs. Bazaar in HIT-OSS

Observation of the trends in many HIT OSS projects leads me to believe that our niche in the OSS world prefers the Cathedral model (Eric S. Raymond’s definition) rather than the Baazar model.

There is evidence that OSS projects are now realizing that true collaboration requires us all to set aside ego and trust our collaborators in all stages of the OSS development process. The recent post by F.Trotter regarding PatientOS is a prime example of how re-duplication of efforts ends up slowing down the HIT OSS community as a whole. I am interested to know how many projects are truly conducted in the spirit of “Baazar.” The only one I have come across so far is Tolven. Are there any others?

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Proteus Clinical Guidelines to go Open Source

Lighting up the AMIA os-wg and OpenHealth e-mail discussion lists comes news that the Proteus ‘intelligent clinical guidelines’ tools are going to be open sourced with an as yet to be announced Free/Open Source license: “…I am on the verge of making Proteus related tools available under an open source license. I need the advice of this community of open source champions on how to go about it and the choice of open source license. I know this has been discussed time and again on this list but I am still unclear about several things. Therefore please indulge my naivet�…”

PatientOS 0.26 “Upgrade” Released

This version marks the start of upgrade support for installation by providing a clean database and adding code to upgrade the database schema, data contents, server and client. Issues are now being logged in Jira. Scheduling setup and configuration tools have been added to build Resources and Appointment Types. A new registration form was added configured to streamline data entry.

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