"Open source operating systems, databases, web servers, and system utilities are slowly making inroads into hospital data centers that formerly housed only proprietary technology products. Add another category in which an open source alternative is available: integration engines."
Tim Dotson Inside Healthcare Computing
"We're not in the healthcare business; we're in the information management business. We should start thinking as information managers dealing with healthcare information, and think about the tools we need to do it properly."
2015: Advancing Canada's Next Generation of Healthcare
"People developing software don't understand the complexities of health care, and the health care professionals don't understand what it takes to produce that software. It's hard for them to understand each other, so [one major benefit of OHT] will be to bring them together in one room."
The length and diversity of Wikipedia's list of open source healthcare software may come as a surprise to many readers.
This issue of the OSBR provides an excellent introduction to the complexities and interoperability issues associated with healthcare software and the role open source can play in helping to resolve these issues. This month's authors also provide insight into an open source projects that follows open standards, lessons learned from providing a reference implementation, the benefits of a healthcare ecosystem, and the value of open source projects working closely with standards organizations.
"...the OSGi Alliance is about managing this overwhelming sea of components and their interaction. It is about being in control of the thousands of dependencies that software has to internal and external artifacts. It is a framework that addresses the heart of the software development process. It is about managing the software development, deployment and the, most expensive one, the maintenance process."
"Literacy unlocks the door to learning throughout life, is essential to development and health, and opens the way for democratic participation and active citizenship."
Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the UN
"It is important to utilize the knowledge revolution to join our people and continents with the help of the government, universities and technology centers. Our countries need technology centers with flexible structures to take advantage of the knowledge of the society using tools such as Information and Communication Technologies and Open Source Software to succeed in the information era."
Luis Millan Vásquez de Miguel, President of FUNDECYT
