The Faculty of Engineering of the National University of Entre Rios, Argentina, hosted the Latin American Summit on GNU Health, free healthcare systems management software that can be installed on operating systems (GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, MS Windows), database management systems (PostgreSQL) and business resource planning systems (Tryton).
Luis Falcón, the developer of the software, presented the latest version of the program and explained that it can be used and shared without any need to pay for the license.
GNU Health has three functions: a hospital information system, a health information system and an electronic health record. But the main objective is primary care.
“We can’t forget the basis of medicine which is primary care in the widest possible sense of the concept, from biological, social, emotional and even educational standpoints. All that is health,” Falcón said speaking to the local newspaper El Diario. He added: “Today we have a system that treats patients but I want to change that concept and work with people rather than patients, we have to address the socio-economic determinants of disease.”
The software is designed to work on four levels:
– The first level starts with the concept of people as members of a community, i.e. the subjects as agents that generate useful information for healthcare bodies. “For example, if you see a vinchuca bug or observe cases of domestic violence, you must advise the corresponding bodies,” Falcón said.
-The second level involves the patient-doctor relationship (medical procedures, tests, clinical record).
-The third level focuses on management of healthcare centers (staff, hospitalizations, budget).
-The final level generates statistics for all the information compiled in the previous levels so that the Ministry of Health in questions can use them to shape public policies.
According to Falcón, the philosophy of free software has nothing to do with the idea of giving things away for free but rather freedom because it essentially consists of establishing the concept of a community of informatics.
“Free software makes it possible to download and modify a system that someone or another community has developed so someone working on the project becomes part of that community,” he said.
The objective of GNU Health is to universalize the service and, to make the project sustainable, not to rely on foreign staff. The State of Jamaica, for example, is implementing the software with national human resources throughout the country. This means that its three million inhabitants will have a single electronic health record with basic and critical information which will be accessible via a personal card with a QR code.
