This article highlights McKesson’s continued move of its Health IT software to Linux: ‘…Today, San Francisco-based McKesson offers about 50 of its 70 most popular health care applications — dealing with everything from billing to pharmacy records, staffing, admissions, physician order entry systems and surgery scheduling — on Linux, reducing costs for hospitals and medical offices. The move was solidified in February, when McKesson partnered with Linux vendor Red Hat Inc. to unveil the Red Hat Enterprise Healthcare Platform, which was customized to meet the needs of the health care industry.

“Three years ago, we started a push to move the company to more open standards, including open-source [software] as much as possible,” said Michael Simpson, senior vice president and general manager of the clinicals division within McKesson Provider Technologies…It took some time for them to understand that open source is safe, that open source has support…Red Hat estimated that health care facilities that have switched have been able to save as much as 60% on IT costs compared with what they were spending before.’