Google’s Eric Schmidt Says Open Source Could Be The Way To Go In Health IT

PCAST recently released a report calling for the creation of a “universal exchange language,” to enable patients to access their information from wherever they are. That can’t be done now, since all those EHRs on the market are incompatible with one another.

80% of doctors offices are not computerized, and even large health care organizations have closed systems that are not interoperable. Schmidt's recommendation: Why not adopt software that can be open-sourced? It might be news to Schmidt, but such software has already been developed by none other than the government at a cost of $8 billion, and the VA hospitals have been using it successfully for 15 years.