Q&A: Health IT's Future is Wide Open (Source)

Open source software will have a widening role in future health IT systems, according to a report titled “Open Source, Open Standards and Health Care Information Systems,” which was first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research. However, it still faces some challenges, said Carl J. Reynolds, BSC, MB, of the Centre for Health Informatics and Multiprofessional Education at UCL Medical School in London.

Reynolds, who co-authored the study with Jeremy Wyatt, MB, at Britain’s University of Warwick Institute for Digital Healthcare, spoke with CMIO about the state of open source.

Do you believe open source’s apeal among highly technical users has held it back in healthcare circles?

There is increasing recognition of the success story of the open-source model and many people are looking toward the [Veterans Affairs] network of hospitals and ViSTA as an example of how to do cost-effective meaningful use.

Still, there is a lag in widespread understanding and adoption of open source, which is partly because open-source software licensing is still conceptually unfamiliar to many and partly because of concerted efforts by vendors to maintain the status quo.