Monthly Archives: July 2013

GNU Health chosen by Auroville, the Universal City.

25 Thursday Jul 2013

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Auroville, the Universal City, chose GNU Health, the Universal Health Information System.
The first sentence that we find when we enter Auroville’s homepage is :

“Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realise human unity.”

No wonder why we have such a good connection, since the concepts of community and universality are common to Free Software.

GNU Solidario is working hand-in-hand with Aurovillians so the City and their health center can have its own Health Information System.

The Galaxy : Auroville layout

Auroville is located in the south of India, in Tamil Nadu state. It designed to host 50000 people, from all over the world. Currently has citizens from 45 nations.

UNESCO commendment : In 1966 UNESCO passed a unanimous resolution commending Auroville as a project of importance to the future of humanity, thereby giving their full encouragement.

Auroville’s Unending education

GNU Health is being implemented in Auroville’s health centers, working at many levels, with health promotion and disease prevention, demographics, epidemiology and, of course, the day-by-day medical encounters and health center management. Auroville health professionals take care of the city and surroundings.

Room in Kailash Clinic

The new building of the Auroville Institute for Integral Health was started one year ago. It will be the new home for the Kailash Clinic where a new health care model called ‘the integrative practice of medicine’ will be practised. This model is based upon collaboration of multiple medical systems (western and eastern) to provide holistic care. The building will have consultation and treatment rooms and rooms for in-patient and senior care. It will also provide training and research facilities.

Matrimandir : The Soul of the City

In GNU Solidario, we are honored and very proud to be part of this project, which aims to be an example of unity, community and solidarity. 

 

Auroville Animal Care Center

 

Look for the inner causes of disharmony
much more than outer ones.
It is the inside that governs the outside.

It’s a great to see that GNU Health, the Free Software Health and Hospital Information System, has been chosen to be part of Auroville, a symbol of “sustainable living and the future cultural, environmental, social and spiritual needs of mankind“

More information : www.auroville.org


About GNU Health
GNU Health is a Free Health and Hospital Information System that provides the following functionality: 

  • Health Information System (Demographics, Epidemiology)
  • Hospital Information System
  • Electronic Medical Record 

GNU Health won the Best Project of Social Benefit from the Free Software Foundation, among other international awards.

GNU Health is an official GNU Package , and is part of GNU Solidario, an NGO that delivers health with free software. GNU Solidario and the United Nations University, International Institute for Global Health have signed an agreement to implement and to train Health professionals GNU Health around the world.

GNU Health was presented at the World Health Organization (WHO) and International Communication Union (ITU) session “ICT for Improving Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health” at the World Summit on the Information Society – WSIS 2013 Forum in Geneva.


Main site : health.gnu.org

Budi Luhur University, Indonesia, joins GNU Health !

19 Friday Jul 2013

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Once again, with great pleasure and honor, we announce that another university has joined the GNU Health Community: The Budi Luhur Universitas (Indonesia)
Budi Luhur University, under the management of Budi Luhur Foundation is a nationally recognized institution with excellent teaching. The university being the pioneer among private universities in Indonesia offering computer studies, is consistently judged as one of Indonesia’s best higher educational institution in computer studies and is still highly respected.
We are so proud to see how GNU Health is spreading globally in the health care and academic system.
Thanks again to the Budi Luhur University for joining us !

GNU Health project at Kyeni Consolata Hospital – Kenya –

16 Tuesday Jul 2013

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Few weeks ago we got a mail from Beatriz Meijide. She is from Spain and she has been involved in a very great project for the last 10 years.
Beatriz has been collaborating with the Kyeni Consolata Hospital (Kenya), this a 166 bed hospital with a patient growth on +188% from 2005 to 2012. It is considered the locals favorite hospital for personalised attention and services. The hospital has improved a lot since 2005 and the idea of the people working there is to enhance it even more.  Knowing that the Hospital was in need of an Hospital Information System, Beatriz heard about GNU Health and contacted us and completed a GNU Health Training.
These are her words:

    ” … I believe GNU Health will take the Kyeni Hospital to another level an it will greatly increase the efficiency and control of the hospital information. I think it covers all te areas we need and it also offers the ability to customize further developments if they are required. It’s been a very intense training and I believe I’ll be able to train the  local team in Kenya ! GNU Health is a very “user-friendly” system and I hope we’ll be another success story … ” Beatriz Meijide

Thanks again to Beatriz and the Kyeni Hospital. We’re very proud and exited to be part of this beatiful project !

GNU Health at Care for the World – MedInfo 2013

16 Tuesday Jul 2013

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MedInfo 2013

We are very happy to participate in Medinfo 2013 and talk about GNU Health in two different sessions:

  • Care for the World Symposium: Collaboration, Openness, Transparency and Trust as Prerequisite for High Quality, Effective and Efficient Health Care.

  • Moving Beyond eHealth Systems for ‘People Like Us’

Care for the World Symposium
 

Care for the World is a symposium organized by Thomas Karopka ( BioCon Valley GmbH, Germany), that I have the privilege to represent GNU Solidario, joining my colleagues Syed Aljunid and Nurhizam Safie (United Nations University, International Institute for Global Health, Malaysia );  Holger Schmuhl (Institute for Biological and Medical Imaging, Helmholtz Center Munich, Germany) and Kjeld Lisby (Ideas Clinic, Aalborg University Hospital, Denmark) 


I will talk about GNU Health, the Free Health and Hospital Information System, and discuss the benefits that Free Software provides to Public Health. I will put focus in Primary Health Care; The MDG6 and Neglected Tropical Diseases functionalty in GNU Health.

Abstract

While the Global South still struggles to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) the health systems of the Global North are under pressure due to an aging population and life style related diseases. In 2000 the Millennium Development Goals have been formulated with the major goal of freeing people from extreme poverty and multiple deprivations. Three of the goals are linked to health, namely reduce child mortality, improve maternal health and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. Three years before the deadline at the end of 2015 the world has met some important targets while others remain to be seen. In this mini-symposium two different but related methodologies will be presented that are regarded by the authors as the most powerful principles to provide high-quality, efficient and effective health care in a global context. These two methodologies are the use of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) and Open & User Driven Innovation. This mini-symposium provides real world best practice examples of these methodologies. The chosen best practice examples represent a Global South and a Global North perspective and context and will highlight the potential of combining these approaches and are intended to induce a process of mutual learning and exchange of experience among Global South/Global North as well as different communities and different parts of the world.


Moving Beyond eHealth Systems for “People Like Us” 

This workshop is organized by Paul Turner (eHealth Services Research Group, University of Tasmania, Australia) , Andre Kushniruk (School of Health Information Science, University of Victoria, Canada), Pernille Bertelsen (Department of Development and Planning, Virtual Centre for Health Informatics, Aalborg University, Denmark )


For this workshop, I will demonstrate how we can enhance the interaction with the Patient and the Health Center, as well as the Doctor-Patient relationship using GNU Health and Free Software. Simple, yet effective solutions that cover from mobile integration to Patient Digital IDs and e-prescriptions for people that don’t have the technical or academic background.


Abstract

The tendency to design personal ehealth systems for well to do technically literate professionals, rather than average or disadvantaged users (the PLU problem), has been described previously, but is not yet well understood. This interactive workshop will introduce attendees to the PLU problem, expose them to a simulated experience of being a disadvantaged system user, and encourage them to share their experiences of systems which may exclude disadvantaged users. Attendees will also discuss ideas and potential solutions for the design of more inclusive ehealth systems, and identify positive steps which could ameliorate or avoid the problem in the future. Key outputs of the workshop will include a summary of the information provided by attendees, draft criteria for identifying potential PLU-type problems, and an interim list of possible or actual solutions.

Many thanks to MedInfo for this great event, and especially to Thomas Karopka (Chair IMIA OS WG) and Paul Turner (Associate Professor, eHealth Services Research Group, University of Tasmania, Australia) for inviting me to be part of their symposium and workshop. It’s an honor for me to share with you such an important event, and to promote the adoption of Free Software in Public Health.

Looking forward to meeting all of you in Copenhagen !

About GNU Health
GNU Health is a Free Health and Hospital Information System that provides the following functionality: 

  • Health Information System (Demographics, Epidemiology)
  • Hospital Information System
  • Electronic Medical Record 

GNU Health won the Best Project of Social Benefit from the Free Software Foundation, among other international awards.


GNU Health is an official GNU Package , and is part of GNU Solidario, an NGO that delivers health with free software. GNU Solidario and the United Nations University, International Institute for Global Health have signed an agreement to implement and to train Health professionals GNU Health around the world.


GNU Health was presented at the World Health Organization (WHO) and International Communication Union (ITU) session “ICT for Improving Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health” at the World Summit on the Information Society – WSIS 2013 Forum in Geneva.

Main site : health.gnu.org

GNU Health version 2.0 released !

08 Monday Jul 2013

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Dear All:

I’m proud to announce the release of GNU Health 2.0.0 !
This version comes after 5 months of very hard work, and brings the best version so far. The following highlights some of the main achievements of this version :
  • Compatible with Tryton 2.8
  • GNU Health Installer . An easy OS-independent server installation method
  • Neglected Tropical Diseases – Chagas Module
  • Domiciliary Unit model.
  • Integration with OpenStreetMap (OSM) for realtime geolocation of the Domiciliary Units and other demographic and epidemiological studies.
  • WHO essential medicines is now a module
  • Improve hospitalization module : Bed transfers wizard
  • New Demographics section and functionality on individuals and families
  • Pre-operative ASA (American Society of Anesthesiologists) Physical Status Classification System
  • Revised Cardiac Risk Index
  • Extended Patient Identification registration
  • Improved navigation and view layouts
  • Improved Documentation (on Wikibooks: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GNU_Health)

Bug fixes and many other contributions and suggestions have been incorporated to this version.

UPGRADE : If you plan to upgrade your database from existing releases, please follow the instructions under the “scripts” directory. Before doing the upgrade, double check that you have backed up both your kernel and database !
Documentation: The documentation portal on Wikibooks (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GNU_Health) is being re-written with a new format, more comprehensive and easier to follow. The first four chapters and the installation section are pretty much done, and we are working every day to update all remaining chapters.
Enjoy GNU Health 2.0 and thank you for contributing to a better and more just Public Health using Free Software !
Bests
—
Luis Falcon
President, GNU Solidario

GNU Health 2.0

02 Tuesday Jul 2013

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Dear all

Less than 6 days left to GNU Health 2.0  ! 🙂

Just finished the installation of  the Release Candidate version for the upcoming Gnu Health 2.0 on the community server.

You only need to update your Tryton client to v2.8.1 and connect with the same credentials. The DB name is health20rc1

Time to test and report issues and last-minute bugs . Please don’t report technical issues or bugs here. You should do it writing to the GNU Health general mailing list (health@gnu.org)

The languages templates have been updated in Transifex, so please check you language translation status before Friday.

Bests,
Luis Falcón