Taking an Open (Source) Approach to HIT Challenges

There are three key areas of open-source innovation that can significantly benefit IT departments with strapped budgets and impending compliance mandates.

The healthcare industry is under an unprecedented amount of regulatory and budgetary pressure this year. When faced with increasing challenges, the natural reaction is to cut budgets, tighten spending and cost-effectively maintain compliance in order to preserve the bottom line while waiting for greener pastures.

However, it is during tough times that IT professionals should question natural reaction and approach this year’s challenges with an open mind and evaluate a different set of technologies: open source. The traditional appeal of open source is cost efficiency; it does help organizations do more with less. Organizations such as Hartford Hospital can prove open-source Linux-based technology can reduce start-up costs and increase the ability to cost-effectively scale resources through implementation and management...

Open-source-driven innovation has arrived in healthcare too. Looking to 2012, there are three key areas of open-source innovation that can significantly benefit IT departments with strapped budgets and impending compliance mandates. Noting these innovations could not only help budgets and bandwidth, but also enable IT to be a key business driver throughout the organization...