Lighting up the hospital
2005.09.09
Guest post by Dulan Abeyratne
One of the biggest issues with software applications are that they don’t always take in to account the end user. As a result, there are many people who have issues easily solved, that aren’t solved because they don’t have the necessary knowledge. Dr. Nandalal Gunaratne used to be just an end user, but now he’s become part of a program to make good use of LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP/Perl/Python) for the Health Services.
Dr. Gunaratne started off his presentation by mentioning his postition as an end user and asked everyone to bear with him if he doesn’t use as many technical terms as the other speakers. After that, there was an interesting mention of the ruins of an ancient hospital in Mihintale. The story behind this would be explained later.
Apparently, there’s a huge need for Health Information Technology (HIT), so that’d be a great place for people start looking into. This is mainly due to the fact that data needs to be collected, manipulated and analysed a lot. Also, there was a need to shift from text based applications (which had been in use earlier) to Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) in order to enable the applications to be used by non-IT staff - i.e. doctors, nurses etc.
One of the main highlights of the presentation was the statement made with regard to the need for Electronic Medical Records (EMR) which the doctor says, are required “from Womb to Tomb”. So much so, that sometimes the staff ask parents at Kalubowila (Colombo South) Hospital for the kids’ names, before they’re even born. This is probably quite disturbing for the parents, since many would be waiting to check for auspicious names based on the time the kid is born, but I digress.
The standard format for EMR could not be proprietary. If it were, it would present a significant problem for the stakeholders of the hospital - like for instance, the government, as the data would be based on a format not owned by them. Therefore, Free and Open Source was selected as the way to go.
In Sri Lanka, the Health Service is handled by the government and is mostly free. Therefore Free and Open Source makes even more sense, as it would be very cost efficient.
Dr. Gunaratne also mentioned a number of open source tools available for the medical community - like GNUMED and FreeMed. He also talked about how Medical Imaging had not much support in the FOSS community maybe two years ago, but how the support had grown significantly since then.
The support of Andrew P. Ho and LinuxMedNews had been of great use to the Dr. Gunaratne. The spirit of cooperation through this mailing list has enabled the doctor to greatly increace his knowledge of LAMP and finally establishing a system based on OIO for use at the hospital.
The main advantage of LAMP, according to the doctor, was the similarity to Lego toys. The ability to put together various applications so that the final required product could be used has been very useful.
However, it seems that the project is currently suffering from a lack of publicity. The doctor appealed to everyone present to help ensure that this project doesn’t suffer the same fate as the hospital in Mihintale, which while having been of immense use in its time, now lies in ruins - of interest to archealogists and sightseers only.
In conclusion, the doctor made another interesting point - that Apache was like the sun, bright, but difficult for someone like him to work with directly, but Zope was the moon - easier for him to deal with.
In summary - the presentation added to the growing argument that government data needs to conform to open standards, for it to be of the best use.
