Monthly Archives: October 2009

Richard Stallman and Medical at IWEEE 2010

30 Friday Oct 2009

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We are very happy to have Richard Stallman at IWEEE 2010, the International Workshop on e-Health in Emerging Economies.

Richard will be at the same event where we will presenting Medical, the Universal Hospital and Health Information System. IWEEE brings together the main stakeholders (NGOs, Church, Academy, Multilateral organizations, Government and Industry ) to discuss the situation in developing countries and come to possible solutions. We will be promoting free software (like Medical ) to make a change in the lives of the people, doctors and institutions in emerging economies.

No doubt that Richard Stallman is one of the most important and influential people in the history of Free Software. He has developed tools that we’ve been using for decades, such as the excellent GCC ( GNU Compiler Collection , at the beginning, the GNU C Compiler).

But Richard Stallman is way more than that. He created the GNU Operating System, that together with the Linux kernel is in all GNU/Linux variants ; he created the GPL license, and most importantly, he has been figthing for decades for free software, making it a reality today, when not that long ago it was utopia.

There is no doubt on my mind that Richard Stallman will be a key player to help us who are working to introduce the free software philosophy  to the healthcare industry. Health MUST be universal, and so should be the software that takes care of the patients. Free software in healthcare is a right that every doctor, hospital and patient should have access.

We are looking forward to sharing with Richard his experiences, views and opinions on how to keep introducing Free Software in the healthcare and schools in the developing world.

More info at : http://www.iweee.org

Luis Falcón
GNU Solidario Project

Peerless Hospital in Nigeria chooses Medical

02 Friday Oct 2009

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Dear all

We are very happy to announce that Peerless Hospital in Nigeria has chosen Medical for their institution.

I have been contacted by Mr. Agu Chibueze who told me their decision of using Medical to implement their Hospital Information System, as part of the African Health Network.

This non-profit effort is part of the GNU Solidario project, who delivers education and hea lth to emerging economies with free software.

This is part of the team in Nigeria:

  • Agu Chibueze (Computer Scientist)
  • Emmanuel Akpo (Medical Doctor, Surgeon)
  • Chibuike Ugwuoke (Computer Professional)

This is a very challenging project in which we will put all our effort to deliver a system that will optimize their healthcare. We already set up a development server and are working on a daily basis with the Nigerian team.

Many thanks to Agu, Dr. Emmanuel, Chibuike and the Peerless Hospital for their great mission on helping out the people of Nigeria, and for trusting Medical and GNU Solidario.

Here is a letter from Agu Chibueze about the African Health Network that I want to share with you :

THE AFRICAN HEALTH NETWORK

The African Health Network is a new organization with the primary aim of centralizing Electronic Medical Records within Sub-Saharan Africa. The African Health Network plans to achieve this using strictly open source tools. AHN has chosen OpenERP from Tiny and Axelor as their framework of choice and the medical module from Thymbra.

Currently, online healthcare is far beyond the reach of the common African. While the project is expected to be self-financing, AHN has chosen open standards to bring affordable online healthcare to even the poorest of people within the region. The African Health Network hopes to start its operations by the middle of this month. There are three people central to this project, a doctor and two computer professionals. AHN will be starting out with Peerless Hospital and Wellness in Warri, Delta State, Nigeria as the first member hospital and the Global Medical Missions as the first member health organization.

The AHN project is the first of its kind within the region and is bound to face challenges ranging from poor internet connectivity within the region to a low level of computer literacy amongst health professionals. AHN, however has been working out collaborative relationships between Internet service providers and is planning for an effective computer training program for future members of the online network.