Nearly two thirds of
Health IT Strategist readers responding to our latest poll indicate they are keeping an open mind when it comes to open-source software.
Asked: “Would you consider using an open-source electronic health-record system in your hospital or physician office?” 93 of the 139 poll takers, or almost 67%, indicated “yes,” while 47 (not quite 34%) responded, “no.” (The percentages don't add up to 100 because of rounding.)
Those numbers might increase—at least some folks laboring at HHS' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology probably hope they will. The ONC last week hosted its first call-in meeting on NHIN Direct, a lightweight version of the proposed national health information network.
According to Doug Fridsma, acting director of the Office of Interoperability and Standards at the ONC, the NHIN Direct project includes use of the federally developed, open-source software called NHIN Connect, what Fridsma described as the
“cake” baked to the specifications and standards called for in the NHIN “recipe.”Take our reader poll on NHIN Direct and view past HITS reader polls.
