Over at ZDNet.com, Dana Blankenhorn blogs about how insurance companies are controlling the information that should be kept between doctors and patients. Electronic health records (EHR) systems cost $44,000 to install, $8,500/year to maintain, per doctor. But money isn’t the main concern. The insurance companies subsidize the costs of the systems and lock in proprietary systems and “if insurers are able to control EHR architecture privacy will never be protected, as it’s not in their interest to protect it.”

And this is where Blankenhorn gets OSS:

But in the end it’s the transparency of the code, not its cost and not who it comes from…[it’s] not that doctors want to write code. But if they can see the code, they can pay people to protect that code in their interest.

It’s an interesting question, one which also impacts other professions as well. When the code is visible you can easily hire someone to protect your interests in what it does. When it’s invisible others have that power.

Also, there is an interesting (Slashdot-like) site devoted to Linux in the medical profession: GNU/Linux Medical News. On the sidebar, it states

GNU/Linux Medical News is THE site for Linux, Free and Open Source medical software news. We actively cover news about Free and Open Source: Electronic Health Records, EHR, Medical Billing, Electronic Medical Record, EMR and Practice Managment systems…Can free and open source medical software provide less expensive, better medical care? Yes! We provide insightful articles and maintain a comprehensive listing of open source and Linux medical software projects.

One story mentions how the Swedish state pharmacy will be using RHEL in 900 of its pharmacies.

Its good to see Linux spread its wings and make an impact in a field we don’t traditionally discuss.