[Gllug] NHS software projects

[Mark Preston]

Hi Rich,
Re:- "is anyone developing Free or Open Source software for the NHS?"

Yes. See http://www.pricom.co.uk/home for one example I know of.
I am interested in this area, mostly in a hobby capacity and mainly 
because I believe "open source" software should be used more for NHS 
health related matters.
 I have developed a free online interactive NHS dental fee calculator 
(see http://www.markpreston.uklinux.net/nhsFeesAug2003.php3  ) amongst 
other things.

There are a number of more general serious FLOSS based healthcare 
projects in development.
Mostly these are outwith the NHS, but could possibly be incorporated 
into the NHS in the future.
IMHO it is quite an exciting time for this.

Andrew Ho (http://www.txoutcome.org/), who has demonstrated OIO at previous OSHCA conferences, has recently successfully produced
LiveOIO, a remastered version of Knoppix. It is excellent for Plone, Zope and PostgreSQL, see
 http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=9295
 but doesn't allow for easy installation of
similar FLOSS type healthcare programs that rely on combinations of PHP,
MySQL, PostgreSQL and Apache.
I hope to do this, and it will probably take me a long time  - mostly due to a personal lack of computer programming aptitude.
i.e. to package up other GPL based 
healthcare projects that use either Apache, PostgreSQL or MySQL so that 
they also work  and can be compared/used/developed alongside OIO. I'm thinking particularly of projects such as Odontolinux (a Debian package) and Care2x http://www.care2x.com
Basically, to remaster Knoppix in a similar way
to what Chu-Ching Huang has already achieved with LiveZope. See

http://zope.org/Members/cchuang/Live%20Zope%20on%20Knoppix%20Linux%20CDROM


There are other projects such as GnuMed that will also be producing "LiveOpenHealth" versions of Knoppix. See
http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/gnumed/gnumed/gnumed/test-area/knoppix/?search=None&hideattic=1#dirlist <http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/gnumed/gnumed/gnumed/test-area/knoppix/?search=None&hideattic=1#dirlist>

For some links that discuss future IT in the NHS try
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/321/7267/976
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/326/7382/202

Regards,
Mark Preston


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