Category Archives: GNU solidario

Fundación La Vicuña joins GNU Health

25 Saturday Feb 2023

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On Thursday, Feb 23rd, 2023, GNU Solidario and the Spanish NGO Fundación La Vicuña ORL have signed a cooperation agreement to promote and implement the Health and Hospital Management component from GNUHealth in those areas and institutions where Fundación La Vicuña has activities, mainly Spain and countries in Africa.

Fundación La Vicuña is a non-profit organization founded 15 years ago by a group of physicians, mostly ear, nose and throat specialists in Cadiz, Spain.

GNU Solidario and Fundacion La Vicuña share the goal of improving the lives of the underprivileged, through Social Medicine and universal access to healthcare. GNU Health will be a very valuable tool to assess the socioeconomic determinants of health and to minimize the impact in the vulnerable population, both in Spain and in the African continent. GNU Health will improve the management of health institutions and the daily medical practice where Fundación La Vicuña has missions. Patient evaluations, medical records, prescriptions, laboratory, surgeries and inpatient/hospitalization will be some of the areas that will benefit from GNU Health HMIS.

Casimiro García, president and founder of Fundación La Vicuña and Luis Falcón, founder and president of GNU Solidario, formalized the cooperation agreement this Thursday. In the coming weeks, GNU Solidario will train the team from Fnd. La Vicuña in the use of GNUHealth, and a development environment will be rolled out.

We are thrilled and looking forward to working hand in hand with Fundación la Vicuña, to put into practice the philosophy of open science and Libre software in healthcare for the betterment of our societies, delivering Social Medicine and dignity to those who need it most.

For more information you can visit Fundación la Vicuña homepage (in Spanish): http://www.fundacionlavicuna.org/

Source: https://my.gnusolidario.org/2023/02/24/fundacion-la-vicuna-joins-gnu-health/

Cirugía Solidaria chooses GNU Health

09 Tuesday Aug 2022

Posted by in GNU Health, GNU solidario, HMIS, LIMS, Public Health

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The GNU Health community keeps growing, and that makes us very proud! This time, the Spanish non-profit organization Cirugía Solidaria has chosen GNU Health as their Hospital and Lab Management system.

Cirugía Solidaria was born in 2000 by a team of surgeons, anesthetists and nurses from “Virgen de la Arrixaca Hospital”, in Murcia, Spain, with the goal to provide medical assistance and to perform surgeries to underprivileged population and those in risk of social exclusion. Currently, Cirugía Solidaria counts with a multi-disciplinary team of health professionals around Spain that just made its 20th anniversary of cooperation.

GNUHealth Hospital Management client for Cirugía Solidaria

Around a month ago I received a message from Dr. Cerezuela, expressing their willingness to be part of the GNU Health community. Their main missions currently are focused, but not limited, to the African continent.

Source: Cirugía Solidaria

After several conferences and meetings, this August 1st 2022, Cirugía Solidaria and GNU Solidario signed an agreement to cooperate in the implementation, training and maintenance of the GNU Health Hospital Management and Lab Information System in those countries and health institutions where Cirugía Solidaria will be present.

Source: Cirugía Solidaria

This is very exciting. We have many projects in different countries from Africa, and working with Cirugía Solidaria will help to generate more local capacity, to cover the needs of those health professionals and their population.

This is not just about surgeries or health informatics. GNU Health will allow Cirugía Solidaria to create sustainable projects. They will have unified clinical and surgical histories, telemedicine; assess the nutritional and educational status of the population, and many other socioeconomic determinants of health and disease.

I want to give our warmest welcome to the team of Cirurgía Solidaria, and we are very much looking forward to cooperating with this great organization, for the betterment our our societies, and for those that need it most.

About GNU Health

The GNU Health project provides the tools for individuals, health professionals, institutions and governments to proactively assess and improve the underlying determinants of health, from the socioeconomic agents to the molecular basis of disease. From primary health care to precision medicine.

GNU Health is a Libre, community driven project from GNU Solidario, a non-profit humanitarian organization focused on Social Medicine. Our project has been adopted by public and private health institutions and laboratories, multilateral organizations and national public health systems around the world.

The GNU Health project provides the tools for individuals, health professionals, institutions and governments to proactively assess and improve the underlying determinants of health, from the socioeconomic agents to the molecular basis of disease. From primary health care to precision medicine.

The following are the main components that make up the GNU Health ecosystem:

  • Social Medicine and Public HealthHospital Management (HMIS)
  • Laboratory Management (Occhiolino)
  • Personal Health Record (MyGNUHealth)
  • Bioinformatics and Medical Genetics
  • Thalamus and Federated health networks
  • GNU Health embedded on Single Board devices

GNU Health is a GNU (www.gnu.org) official package, awarded with the Free Software Foundation award of Social benefit, among others. GNU Health has been adopted by many hospitals, governments and multilateral organizations around the globe.

See also:

GNU Health : https://www.gnuhealth.org

GNU Solidario : https://www.gnusolidario.org

Digital Public Good Alliance: https://digitalpublicgoods.net/

Original post : https://my.gnusolidario.org/2022/08/09/cirugia-solidaria-chooses-gnu-health/

Leibniz University Hannover joins the GNU Health Alliance of Academic and Research Institutions

03 Thursday Feb 2022

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GNU Solidario and Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH) are now partners in GNU Health, the Libre digital health ecosystem.

This agreement makes the German university a member of the GNU Health Alliance of academic and research institutions, to work on the research and development of GNU Health, the award-winning Libre digital health ecosystem.

The partnership was signed on February 2nd, 2022, by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gabriele von Voigt, head of the Computational Health Informatics department at Leibniz Universität Hannover and Dr. Luis Falcón, president of GNU Solidario.

University of Hanover main building. Source: LUH

We are excited and looking forward to cooperate and research in areas such as privacy, distributed health networks, bioinformatics, hospital management or Personal Health Records. Leibniz Universität Hannover has been using the GNU Health Hospital Management System component for quite sometime now internally, in their health informatics department. This agreement will boost even more the adoption of the libre health ecosystem.

Some of the components from the GNU Health digital health ecosystem

Leibniz Universität Hannover is a reference for the adoption of GNU Health in European universities, serving as a model of open science and free/libre software in public academic institutions. Moreover, being part of the GNU Health Alliance of Academic and Research Institutions opens up horizons to collaborate with other universities around the world.

We are positive that this agreement will help promoting the adoption of GNU Health and Libre Software within the healthcare system and biomedical research in Europe.

The logo of Leibniz University is a visual Leibniz quote. It shows the binary number system as first outlined by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in his New Year’s letter of January 1697 to Duke Rudolf August of Wolfenbüttel.

About Leibniz Universität Hannover:

The Leibniz University Hannover, long form in German Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover, is a public research university located in Hanover, Germany. Founded on 2 May 1831, it is one of the largest and oldest science and technology universities in Germany. It has nine faculties which offer 190 full and part degree programs in 38 fields of study.It was named University of Hannover in 1978. In 2006, it was named after Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the 18th century mathematician and philosopher. In 2018, Leibniz University Hannover was adopted as the official English name.

Leibniz University Hannover is a member of TU9, an association of the nine leading Institutes of Technology in Germany. It is also a member of the Conference of European Schools for Advanced Engineering Education and Research (CESAER), a non-profit association of leading engineering universities in Europe. The university sponsors the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB), the largest science and technology library in the world

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Hanover

About the GNU Health Alliance

The GNU Health Alliance of Academic and Research Institutions is a GNU Solidario program comprising a global network of academic and research institutions around the world with the mission of provide a sustainable solutions to the current social and biomedical challenges, using GNU Health and Free Software components.

News source: GNU Solidario https://my.gnusolidario.org/2022/02/03/leibniz-university-hannover-joins-the-gnu-health-alliance-of-academic-and-research-institutions/

Rompiendo Cadenas

30 Thursday Sep 2021

Posted by in animal rights, GNU solidario

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Una sociedad que esclaviza, tortura y mata a otras especies, es una sociedad enferma. Las medianías de nuestro archipiélago están colmadas de casas y fincas con perros que malviven encadenados las 24 horas del día, bajo sol y lluvia. La vida de muchos podencos se reduce al hacinamiento constante, para que después de la temporada de caza, sus dueños los maten. Los gatos de colonias son víctimas de atropellos, envenenamientos y reproducción descontrolada, sin que haya un control ético de las mismas. Muchos animales abandonados en centros municipales están condenados a muerte. Son algunos ejemplos que nos sitúan en una vergonzosa posición en relación a los derechos de los animales.

Timple, un perrito callejero de Lanzarote, fue brutalmente torturado y asesinado en agosto de 2020. La muerte de Timple, el perrito de nadie y de todos, fue la gota que colmó el vaso. Ese día, un llanto desconsolado inundó Canarias. Lloramos, gritamos, reaccionamos.

La reacción empieza el mismo 7 de agosto. La rabia se convierte en activismo. Desde GNU Solidario comenzamos la campaña “Rompiendo Cadenas“, con el fin de erradicar el maltrato animal en nuestras islas. Contactamos y solicitamos audiencia a la Presidencia del gobierno de Canarias; unimos fuerzas con asociaciones animalistas hermanas; volamos a Lanzarote y firmamos el Pacto de Teguise, documento que adoptado por individuos, instituciones, partidos políticos y municipios en España y Europa.

La movilización generó el compromiso de Presidencia del gobierno de Canarias y que distintas agrupaciones políticas de Canarias (GP Socialista Canario, Nueva Canarias, Sí Podemos Canarias, Agrupación Socialista Gomera) registrasen el 11 de febrero de este año 2021, la Proposición de Ley de Bienestar y Protección Animal , que nosotros denominamos “la Ley Timple“, que en estos momentos se encuentra en trámite. Dicha proposición de ley necesita ser ampliamente revisada y mejorada previo a su aprobación. Puedes leer el contenido y estado de la misa en este enlace https://parcan.es/iniciativas/tramites.py?id_iniciativa=10L/PPL-0005 y hacernos llegar tus comentarios y enmiendas a la cuenta “animalrights@gnusolidario.org”

En la reunión mantenida el lunes 27 de septiembre de 2021 entre GNU Solidario y el Gobierno de Canarias, abordamos dicha proposición de ley de bienestar y protección animal de Canarias. Hay mucho por mejorar en la misma, y necesitamos, como comunidad, hacer llegar nuestras peticiones y enmiendas antes que se apruebe. Dicho esto, esta ley sería el primer gran paso para sacar a Canarias del vacío absoluto en el ámbito de los derechos de los animales.

Algunos puntos que GNU Solidario pide incorporar o mejorar en la actual proposición de ley son:

  • Sacrificio cero de animales en centros de acogida.
  • Prohibición de cualquier tipo de experimentación animal (científica, docencia,…).
  • Gestión ética de colonias felinas.
  • Prohibición de cría y venta de animales y fomentar la adopción responsable.
  • Fin de los parques zoológicos y acuarios.
  • Abolición todo tipo de actos y tradiciones que impliquen maltrato.
  • Prohibición del confinamiento / encadenamiento de perros en fincas o casas.
  • Servicio veterinarios público y gratuito.
  • Eliminar el concepto de “perro guardián”
  • Prohibir “animales de producción” para la industria peletera
  • Incluir el Pacto de Teguise

Rompiendo Cadenas será un éxito, porque refleja el grito genuino de la mayoría de canarias y canarios, hartos de la cosificación y explotación de los animales no humanos. La discriminación o situarse en un plano moral superior a otra persona, basado en el sexo, color de la piel, edad, orientación sexual o especie nos empequeñece como personas y como sociedad.

La declaración de Toulon recalca que los animales deben ser considerados universalmente como personas y no como cosas, confiriéndoles personalidad jurídica y derechos. Al igual que nosotros, los animales no-humanos son seres sintientes, con capacidad de tener experiencias subjetivas y de sufrir. Las ratas, cerdos, perros, gallinas, vacas, gatos o pollos no son menos personas que nosotros. No deben ser posicionados en planos morales inferiores.

Timple sufrió la peor cara del ser humano. La cara de la crueldad y el sadismo en su máxima expresión. Nos toca ahora devolverle la dignidad. La ley de bienestar y protección animal de Canarias llevará su nombre, Timple, para que nunca nos olvidemos que él supuso el punto de inflexión hacia una sociedad canaria empática y respetuosa con todas las personas, independientemente de la especie.

Reitero, una sociedad que esclaviza, tortura y mata a otras especies, es una sociedad enferma. GNU Solidario es una organización focalizada en la medicina social. El grado de respeto y compasión en nuestra interacción con la naturaleza y otras especies con las que compartimos este mundo, no sólo denotan nuestra altura moral como individuos y sociedad, sino que son factores fundamentales para el futuro del ser humano en el planeta.

GNU Health emergency response in Haiti

15 Sunday Aug 2021

Posted by in gnu, GNU Health, GNU solidario, Public Health

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Yesterday, yet another devastating earthquake hit the southern area of Haiti.

Immediately knowing about the earthquake, we contacted our representative in Haiti, Pierre Michel Augustin, and started an emergency humanitarian response in coordination with our team in the country .

Haiti suffers from recurrent natural disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes). In the last years, Haiti has also been a victim of structural poverty and civil unrest. Haitians are strong, resilient, noble people. Haiti is the land of the free and the brave (see my post “My trip to Haiti, the land of the Free and the Brave” ), yet it seems like the world has forgotten about Haiti.

GNU Solidario emergency response campaign in Haiti: https://www.gnusolidario.org/haiti.html

Archive picture (credit: UN Photo/Marco Dormino).

We need emergency response now, but we also need to work on Social Medicine, and tackle the socioeconomic determinants that are the root cause of the structural poverty in Haiti. Only then, our Haitians brothers and sisters will be able to recover the dignity that they deserve, and grow in prosperity. We need to create the conditions, working the local community in the country to strengthen the public health and education system. GNU Health is part of this program.

Our local representative, engineer Pierre Michel Augustin, has been working in the localization of GNU Health, and by the end of 2021, we will have the GNU Health node fully operational in Limbé. The Haiti GNU Health office will provide training and support to the local and regional health professionals and institutions.

The GNU Health project focuses on helping health professionals delivering Social Medicine and health informatics.

Natural disasters have a profound impact in the short, medium and long period in any nation. The situation gets much worse when they hit impoverished nations. So, in the short term, we will put all the effort to tackle this emergency and save lives. For the medium and long term, we will continue the GNU Health node in Haiti and building the GNU Health Federation in the country, in cooperation with the local team, academic and health institutions.

Creating local capacity is key to make the project sustainable. Resources will be dedicated to build the infrastructure (hardware, network..), but the main focus and effort will be on building local capacity, and training the local team to make them independent and build a sustainable and ethical model.

Visit https://www.gnusolidario.org/haiti.html to support our mission in Haiti

In the end, technology is just a medium, and GNU Health is a social project that uses really cool Free/Libre technology and open science, for the betterment of our societies.

Please consider helping GNU Solidario humanitarian campaign in Haiti, by visiting the following link:

https://www.gnusolidario.org/haiti.html

About GNU Solidario:

GNU Solidario is a non-profit humanitarian organization focused on Social Medicine. We have missions around the globe, and our projects has been adopted by health institutions, multilateral organizations and national public health systems around the world.

GNU Solidario is the organization behind GNU Health, the award winning Free / Libre digital health ecosystem, that provides a Hospital Management System, a Lab Information System, a Personal Health Record and a distributed, Federated health network.

GNU Health is a GNU official project ( see www.gnu.org), licensed under the GNU General Public License, GPL v3+

IFMSA Bangladesh joins the GNU Health Alliance

07 Monday Jun 2021

Posted by in GNU Health, GNU solidario, Libre Software, MyGNUHealth, Public Health

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The non-profit organization with 3500+ medical students and 65 universities across the country is now part of the GNU Health Alliance of Academic and Research Institutions
The non-profit organization with 3500+ medical students and 65 universities across the country is now part of the GNU Health Alliance of Academic and Research Institutions

It’s a great day for Bangladesh. It’s a great day for public health! Today, GNU Solidario and the International Federation of Medical Students Association, IFMSA Bangladesh, have signed an initial 5-year partnership on the grounds of the GNU Health Alliance of Academic and Research Institutions.

IFMSA Bangladesh is a non-for-profit, non-political organization that comprises 3500+ medical students from over 65 schools of Medicine across Bangladesh. They are a solid organization, very well organized, with different standing committees and support divisions.

IFMSA vision and mission fits very well with those of GNU Solidario advancement of Social Medicine. IFMSA has projects on Public Health (reproductive health; personal hygiene; cardiovascular disease and cancer prevention, … ), Human rights and peace (campaigns to end violence against women; protection of the underprivileged elders and children.. ). I am positive the GNU Health ecosystem will help them reach their goals in each of their projects!

The GNU Health Alliance of Academic and Research Institutions is extremely happy to have IFMSA Bangladesh as a member. IFMSA Bangladesh joins now a group of outstanding researchers and institutions that have made phenomenal advancements in health informatics and contributions to public health. Some examples:

  • The National University of Entre Ríos (UNER) has been awarded the project to use GNU Health as a real-time observatory for the COVID-19 pandemic, by the Government of Argentina. In the context of the GNU Health Alliance, UNER has also developed the oral health package for GNU Health; and implemented the GNU Health Hospital Management Information System component in many public health care institutions in the country. The team from the UNER has traveled to Cameroon to implement GNU Health HMIS in several health facilities in the country, as well as training their health professionals.
  • Thymbra Healthcare (R&D Labs) has contributed the medical genetics and precision medicine. Currently, Thymbra is focused on MyGNUHealth, the GNU Health Personal Health Record (PHR) for KDE plasma mobile and desktops devices, and working on the integration of MyGNUHealth with the PinePhone.
  • Khadas has signed an agreement to work on with the GNU Health community in Artificial Intelligence and medical imaging, as well on integrating Single Board Computers (SBCs) with GNU Health (the GNU Health in a Box project)

The fact that an association of 3500+ medical students embrace GNU Health means that all these bright future doctors from Bangladesh will also bear the ethics and philosophy of Libre Software to their communities. Public Health can not be run by private corporations, nor by proprietary software.

IFMSA has 5 years ahead to make a wonderful revolution in the public health care system. Health institutions will be able to implement state-of-the-art health informatics. Medical students can learn GNU Health inside-out, and conduct workshops across the country in the Libre digital health ecosystem. Most importantly, I am positive GNU Health will provide a wonderful opportunity to improve the health promotion and disease prevention campaigns in Bangladesh.

As the president of GNU Solidario, I am truly honored and looking forward to start collaborating with our colleagues from Bangladesh, and, when the pandemic is over, be able to meet them in person.

My most sincere appreciation to IFMSA Bangladesh for becoming part of the GNU Health community. To the 3500+ members, a very warm welcome!

Let’s keep building communities that foster universal health care, freedom and social medicine around the world.

For further information about the GNU Health Alliance of Academic and Research Institutions, please contact us at:

GNU Health Alliance: alliance@gnuhealth.org

Press: press@gnuhealth.org

General Information : info@gnuhealth.org

GNUHealthCon 2020. Social Medicine in a time of pandemic

16 Wednesday Dec 2020

Posted by in events, GNU Health, GNU solidario, KDE

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It was not easy… we’re so used to celebrate the GNU Health Conference (GHCon) and the International Workshop on eHealth in Emerging Economies (IWEEE) in a physical location, that changing to a virtual conference was challenging. At the end of the day, we are about Social Medicine, and social interaction is a key part of it.

The pandemic has changed many things, including the way we interact. So we decided to work on a Big Blue Button instance, and switch to virtual hugs for this year. Surprisingly, it work out very well. We had colleagues from Gabon, Brazil, Japan, Austria, United States, Argentina, Spain, Germany, Chile, Belgium, Jamaica, England, Greece and Switzerland. We didn’t have any serious issues with the connectivity, and all the live presentations went fine. Time zone difference among countries was a bit challenging, specially to our friends from Asia, but they made it!

Social Medicine, health literacy and patient activation

The non-technical talks covered key aspects in Social Medicine, Citizens, health literacy, patient activation and Global digital health records, given by Dr. Richard Fitton, Steve and Oliver, two of his patients. Armand Mpassy talked about the challenges about GNU Health for IT illiterate Case study: Patient workflow at the outpatient service.

Individual privacy and crypto

On privacy and cryptography subjects, we had talks from Isabela Bagueros from Tor, Surviving the surveillance pandemic, Ricardo Morte Ferrer on A proposal for the implementation of a Whistleblower Channel in GNU Health, and Florian Dold on GNU Taler: A payment system by the GNU Project.

openSUSE Leap, packaging GNU Health and Orthanc

On operating systems, Doug Demaio from openSUSE talked about The big Change for openSUSE Leap 15.3, the new features on the upcoming release of this great distribution, bringing sources of SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) closer to the community distribution. I can not stress enough the importance of getting professional support on your GNU Health installations. Health informatics should not be taken lightly, and is key to have a solid implementation of the underlying operating system components, to get the highest levels of of security, availability and performance in GNU Health.

Axel Braun, board member openSUSE and core team member of GNU Health, focused on packaging GNU Health and the openSUSE Open Build Service (OBS). The presentation Hidden Gems – the easy way to GNU Health, put the stress on making GNU Health installation even easier, in a self-contained environment.

Sébastien Jogdone, leader of the Orthanc project, presented Using WebAssembly to render medical images, an open standard that allows to run C/C++ code on a web browser. This is great news since GNU Health integrates with Orthanc PACS server.

Qt and KDE projects in the spotlight

If we think about innovation in computing, we think about Qt and KDE. GNU Health integrates this bleeding edge technology in MyGNUHealth, the GNU Health Personal Health Record for desktop and mobile devices that uses Qt and Kirigami frameworks.

Aleix Pol, president of KDE e.V., presented Delivering Software like KDE, putting emphasis on delivering code that would be valid for many different platforms, specially mobile devices.

Cristián Maureira-Fredes, leader of the Qt for Python project, in his presentation Qt for Python: past, present, and future!, talked about the history and the upcoming developments in the project, such as PySide6, the latest Python package and development environment for Qt6. MyGNUHealth is a PySide application, so we’re very happy to have Cristián and Aleix on the team!

Dimitris Kardarakos, presented a key concept on modern applications, that is convergence, the property of the application to adapt to different platforms and geometries. His talk Desktop/mobile convergent applications with Kirigami explained how this framework KDE framework, that implements the KDE Human Interface Guidelines, helps the developers create convergent, consistent applications from the same codebase. MyGNUHealth is an example of a convergent application, to be used both in the desktop as in a mobile device.

I did go into details on MyGNUHealth design in my talk, MyGNUHealth The GNU Health Personal Health Record (PHR).

Argentina leading Public Health implementations with Libre Software

Many years of methodical and intense hard work in the areas of health informatics and public health have paid off. The team lead by Dr. Fernando Sassetti, head of the Public Health department of the National University of Entre Rios, has become a reference in the world of public health, Libre Software in the public administration, and implementations of GNU Health in many primary care centers and public hospitals in Argentina.

The National Scientific and Technological Promotion Bureau (Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica), chose Dr. Sassetti project based on GNU Health as the system for management of epidemics in municipalities. Health professionals were trained in GNU Health epidemiological surveillance system, as well as the contact tracing functionality.


Ingrid Spessotti and Fiorella de la Lama on their talk Outpatient follow-up and home care of patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19, explained some of the functionality and benefits of these GNU Health packages, for instance:

  • Real-time observatory and epidemiological surveillance
  • Automatic notification of notifiable disease to the National Ministry of Health
  • Reporting on cases and contacts
  • Calls registry, monitoring of signs and symptoms.
  • Risk factors on each individual (eg, chronic diseases, socioeonomic status…)
  • Geolocalization of suspected or confirmed cases
  • Clinical management and followup for both inpatient and outpatient cases.

Carli Scotta and Mario Puntin, presented the Design, development and implementation of a Dentistry module for GNU Health: experience at the Humberto D’Angelo Primary Care Center in Argentina, a package that will be the base for the upcoming dentistry functionality in GNU Health 3.8 series.

The GNU Health Social Medicine Awards 2020

GNU Health is a social project. In every GHCon, we recognize the people and organizations that work to deliver dignity to those who need it most around the world.

Our biggest congratulations to Prof. Angela Davis, Proactiva Open Arms and Diamante Municipality!

As you can see, we still can do great conferences in the context of the pandemic. I hope to see you and hug you in person at GHCon2021.

In the meantime, stay safe!

For this and past editions of GNUHealthCon, you can visit www.gnuhealthcon.org

GNU Health pioneers the adoption of WHO ICD-11 and ICHI standards

11 Friday Dec 2020

Posted by in GNU Health, GNU solidario, HMIS, Public Health

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GNU Health and the World Health Organization

The GNU Health project believes in coding standards, specially in those that can be widely used. In 2011, the United Nations University (UNU) adopted the GNU Health Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) component, in part because of its strong focus in social medicine and environmental health, but also because it complied with most of the World Health Organization standards.

Using WHO standards is key for global health. The GNU Health federation provides timely and accurate health information to citizens and health professionals globally. We are able to generate this large, distributed networks of information thanks to protocols and standards, that permit the aggregation of data from thousands and even millions of nodes.

GNU Health at the United Nations – International Institute for Global Health

GNU Health HMIS provides many WHO standards and UN models, such as:

  • ICD-10, International Classification of Diseases, tenth revision
  • ICD-9, Volume 3, for coding procedures
  • ICF, International Classification of Functioning, Disability & Health
  • ICPM, International Classification of Procedures in Medicine (to be replaced by ICHI)
  • WHO List of Essential Medicines
  • Pediatric growth charts
  • Vaccination schedules
  • MDG / SDG (Millennium Development Goals / Sustainable Development Goals, such as the MDG6 to tackle HIV, Malaria and Tuberculosis

Health professionals, institutions and governments around the world can trust GNU Health as the WHO compliant Hospital Management and Health information system.

GNU Health training for WHO Africa Regional Officers

Throughout these years, GNU Health and WHO have been cooperating in areas of Universal Health access, Mother and Child health or campaigns to fight HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis.

It has been nearly a decade of work, at the technical, functional and community level. The training of WHO regional officials, as well as to the health professionals have had a quite positive impact. Proper coding using WHO standards in GNU Health, both for health conditions and procedures / interventions result in good quality, epidemiological reports, better management of the internal resources and improved health promotion and disease prevention campaigns.

First newborn registration in the GNU Health implementation at Cameroon district hospital

Moving forward: ICD-11 and ICHI

The current International Classification of Diseases, tenth revision (ICD10) has been of great help to standardize coding health conditions, but it has its limitations and it definitely needs a review in both the coding system itself as well as the need of specific health areas.

To overcome these limitations, the World Health Organization started ICD-11, the latest revision that includes many more health conditions, the much needed areas of mental health and sexual health, as well as a great method to combine conditions, called cluster coding or postcordination. Cluster coding allows the combination of two terms in for the condition. This concept brings much more flexibility and contextualization.

In terms of health procedures, the International Classification of Health Interventions (ICHI) is estimated to be released by the end of this month. ICHI will replace the International Classification of Procedures in Medicine (ICPM).

The International Classification of Health Interventions will become the standard coding system for reporting and analyzing health procedures. In words from WHO, “the classification provides Member States, service providers, managers, and researchers with a common tool for reporting and analyzing health interventions for statistical, quality and reimbursement purposes.“.

ICHI delivers a coding method based on three axes: Target, Action and Means. It is valid for all context of health (primary care, surgical, dental, nursing, community health). It contains over 7000 interventions that can deliver at an individual or population basis.

GNU Health leads the integration of WHO References

Depending on the individual and environment, a particular pathology can have different clinical representations of the disease. Diabetes mellitus (DM) can be controlled or can have devastating consequences for the individual. Most of the times the socioeconomic determinants play a key role on the epidemiology, clinical outcomes and disease progression, and assessing health as a whole – from the molecular basis to the socioeconomic determinants – is one of the areas where GNU Health excels.

GNU Health provides the WHO International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, that has been key in many context, to assess the impact of the environment in many patients. This was studied in the GNU Health implementation in Laos (see my post “GNU Health: Helping Laos Heal from UXO physical and emotional trauma.“).

WHO diagram on relations among reference classifications

GNU Health is ICD-11 ready, and waiting for you

The upcoming release 3.8 for the GNU Health HMIS component includes de ICD-11 Morbidity and Mortality Statistics (MMS) linearization, as well as the existing ICF package. We are waiting for WHO to release the stable version of ICHI.

The ICD-11 will officially come into effect on 1 January 2022, so we have a year to train and get used to it. The GNU Health HMIS community server can be your perfect training companion. It’s online 24×7 and you can test the new codings in this server.

At this point, you can already start testing the ICD-11 functionality, and how it interacts with the other references as the ICF. Of course, you can become part of the GNU Health team, either as an end-user of as a member of our development and research team, and provide feedback and improvements!

These new additions will be of great help to achieve our common mission towards Universal Health Coverage and Sustainable Development Goals. At the end of the day, GNU Health is a social project that uses really cool Libre technology. I am positive that the immense majority of our health related problems, both at individual and population level, can be solved by means of Social Medicine.

As Dr. Rudolf Virchow said, Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine at a larger scale.

GNU Health and Khadas to deliver Artificial Intelligence in Medicine

30 Wednesday Sep 2020

Posted by in GNU Health, GNU solidario

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It is official: GNU Solidario, the Spanish NGO behind GNU Health (GH) and Khadas Technologies have signed the “GNU Health Alliance of Academic and Research Institutions”, to research and deliver Artificial Intelligence to the world of medicine.

This is very exciting. GNU Health covers genomics, medical genetics, Dx imaging and social medicine, areas where definitely we can use the power of AI for better diagnostics, personalized treatments, decision support, disease prevention and health promotion.

The GNU Health embedded project using Khadas for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine

What is truly revolutionary is that we will be using affordable single board computers, like the Khadas VIM3, where they could work alone or in the context of the GNU Health Federation, doing massive virtual parallel computing.

Citizens, health professionals and institutions don’t have to spend millions to access the latest in technology. In GNU Health, this has always been our philosophy. Health is must be remain a universal human right, and that is what we do in GNU Health. We deliver state-of-the-art technology all over the world with Libre Software. No hidden lines of code, no hidden agenda.

One of Khadas devices, the VIM3 includes a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) that will be the heart of the AI engine.

GNU Health HMIS with genetics package running on a Khadas VIM3 Pro

We can use our GH Federation model which gathers massive information of protein natural variants, and combine it with the latest tools in Artificial Intelligence. We will be giving a giant leap, unveiling the real clinical significance of many mutations that today remain a mystery about how they would affect our health. In GNU Health we are determine to build this critical bridge between the person, the clinician and the researcher.

Another area that we’ll work on is Dx imaging. Training Khadas devices to differentiate many types of lesions will help the pathologist or the surgeon to take real-time decisions in the operating room based on the picture GNU Health camera takes and the diagnostic that the GH embedded return about the specimen.

In the upcoming GNU Health Conference – GHCon2020– , there will be sessions about this project, so we invite anyone to register at the conference, that this year will be online due to the COVID pandemics. Register at GHCon2020

GHCon2020, the annual GNU Health conference

About GNU Solidario: GNU Solidario is a non-for-profit organization that works globally, focused on Social Medicine and health informatics (using Libre Software).

GNU Solidario is the organization behind GNU Health, the award
winning Libre Health and Hospital Information System, deployed in many
health and research institutions around the globe.

About Khadas: Khadas develops superior quality, high performance single board computers for makers, developers, and tinkerers, that come with open source, professional technical support, and a global community for issue discussion & idea sharing.

My trip to Haiti, the land of the free and the brave

12 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by in GNU Health, GNU solidario

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I am coming back from my trip to Haiti.
I was invited by our GNU Health representative in Haiti, Augustin Pierre Michel.

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Handmade GNU Health shirt from Haiti

Haiti is a country of  brave men and women who stand strong fighting for their dignity.
A friend of mine from Jamaica told me once to dig into the history of Haiti, and the importance it had  in the freedom of human kind.
I found particularly captivating the  article “Our debt to Haiti”, from Sir Hilary Beckles[1]. A passage from that article:

This is what happened exactly 200 years ago: Jamaica is bursting at the seams with 300,000 enslaved Africans. Haiti is the only true land of the free and the brave, having defeated in battle the enslavers of France, Britain, and Spain before becoming in 1804 the first free state in the western world.

President Jean-Jacques Dessalines, enshrined within the 1805 national constitution, the most humane and politically powerful provision: Any enslaved person of African descent who arrives on the shores of Haiti is automatically freed and a citizen of Haiti.

Quick digression.. After reading this article, I would love Mr. Jean-Jaques Dessalines to reincarnate and to sit down with all the politicians that want to build walls of shame, and give them a lesson of humanity and ethics.
Two hundred years afterwards, over 40 million women, men and children are victims of modern slavery[2]. The modern world has slavery, slave owners and  “human properties” . Just look at what is happening in the Mediterranean and how migrants are abused and raped in Libya concentration camps. Another way of slavering is how children are used in clothing factories in Bangladesh, that make billionaires in Europe. Appalling.
The Freedom passage
Going back to the history of Haiti …
The Freedom passage named the 170 miles that separated those 300,000 slaves from freedom. The distance between Jamaica and Haiti.
Thousands of women, men and children would risk their live to reach freedom. Similiar to those who do it daily trying to cross the Mediterranean sea in Europe or the Rio Grande in America.
GNU Health mission in Haiti
Back to Haiti… I stayed at Hopital Bon Samaritain (HBS) in the city of Limbé, where we shared time with the colleagues at the hospital. The health institution not only serves as the reference hospital in the region, but also, as a orphanage. The work they do in the areas of Social Medicine is amazing.

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Tuberculosis clinic in Hopital Bon Samaritain (2019 CC BY-SA 4.0 Luis Falcon)

The kids at the HPS orphanage receive education, health and psychological support, as well as food and accommodation throughout the year. It was great sharing time, breakfast, lunch and dinner with them !

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Michel and team from Bon Samaritain Hospital in Limbé, Haiti

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Drawing by child at HBS orphanage (2019 CC BY-SA 4.0 Luis Falcon)

We also got to visit other health institutions in the area interested in implementing GNU Health.
The world can not turn its back on Haiti
Yes. Today Haiti is a impoverish country with civil unrest, and the world is turning the back on Haiti. Haiti exists and we must cooperate with its brave men and women of to bring back dignity to that beautiful country.

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Lady in Cape Haitian . (2019 CC BY-SA 4.0 Luis Falcon)

Since the moment I put a foot in Cape Haitien, I felt the warmth of their people. Their noble smile and their genuine gestures of hospitality from Michel, his mom and the rest of the Haitian colleagues.
Michel is an example of resilience. Not only he is a great computer engineer, but he represents commitment and congruence. He decided to stay in Haiti, and fight for the much needed freedom, prosperity and peace in his country.
I am honored to have Michel Pierre as our GNU Health ambassador in Haiti, and looking forward to many implementations in the country. It has been an experience that I cannot describe with words. You must see for yourself to understand the situation in Haiti.
And yes, I agree with Sir Hilary Beckles, we, the rest of the World are in debt with Haiti. Is now our time to cooperate with our Haitians brothers and sisters, when they need us most.
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