OpenMRS shines in Haiti

I am utterly not surprised to hear that OpenMRS is shining in Haiti.

This reminds me of the tremendous reponse that the VA had to hurricane katrina using VistA. For fun you should ask those involved for the inside scoop of how VistA enabled an entire hospital to uproot and move over the course of a single week.

Sometimes people do not really understand why we need software freedom in healthcare. These are two perfect examples.

Can you imagine the headache that per-seat or per-doc or per-patient EHR licenses would have caused in -any- haiti clinic? Of course they could always -ask- the vendor for temporary seat licenses, and because the vendors are decent human beings they would probably give them to them. Of course that only works when the phones work or the Internet is up.

Emergencies highlight the fact that health software users may have -very- different needs than the software vendor’s vision or even their own understanding. I know that the OpenMRS project will change substancially in response to the earthquake in Haiti. More importantly those changes will spread to other areas of the world… but those other users of OpenMRS will get the haiti lessons -before- the mudslide/tsunami/earthquake/bombing happens in their area.

In fact I can just imagine and administrator setting up OpenMRS for the first time and wondering “Hmm why would you ever need that???” and ten years later, when those features make OpenMRS better able to handle a disaster in that area, the same administrator will say “Ohhh… that’s why….”

Everytime I hear about something like this from the OpenMRS project I feel again guilty that I am not more involved….

-FT