Joseph Dal Molin is the recipient of the 2005 Linux Medical News Freedom Award. The award is given each year to recognize the person, group or project which has in the opinion of Linux Medical News contributed the most to furthering Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in medicine. Dal Molin was the driving force behind a summer of 2005 proposal that ultimately resulted in CMS awarding nearly $1 million dollars to WorldVistA to train vendors for supporting the VistaA Office EHR (VOE) project in the private sector.
Dal Molin has a long record of contribution and leadership in FOSS in medicine. From the WorldVistA website: ‘is an internationally recognized expert in health information technology and pioneer in open source strategy and community building. He is president of e-cology corporation co-founder of WorldVistA, and chaired and co-founded the Open Source Health Care Alliance (OSHCA). Joseph managed the national health care business for a major computer manufacturer and has consulted to the OECD, UCLA School of Medicine, UK NHS Information Authority, University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics and Centre for Global eHealth Innovation. His work includes developing the business plan and strategy for OSCAR, McMaster University Dept. of Family Medicine�s open source EHR, and SPIRIT, the European Commission funded portal for collaborative health software development and co-authored Canada’s first federal study on the impact of the open source model on the Canadian IT market. Joseph is a frequently invited speaker on open source and health IT strategy including events organized by the Kennedy School of Government; American Association of Medical Colleges, American College of Physicians; OECD Working Party on the Information Economy, and Brasilian and Malaysian Health Informatics Associations,. He is currently program manager for VistA Vendor Support Organization which WorldVistA is establishing for CMS’s VistA Office EHR initiative. He lives in Toronto, Canada…’
Dal Molin joins past recipients of the annual Linux Medical News awardees: Tim Cook, KS Bhaskar, Thomas Beale and Fred Trotter.