Saturday, May 26, 2012

Electronic Medical Records in Linux-GNUmed


Electronic Medical Records in Linux-GNUmed
This is something that escaped my attention and hope you excuse me for not highlighting them in Linux100.
There is no excuse for, not bringing them into your focus being myself a medical man.
Suffice is to say that in this country nobody has taken interest in EMR, especially based on Linux.
It is an essential tool when so much is wasted on Medical Care.
Developing a database was one of my first priorities, when I started  research activities.
I did all that on window´s based software and when I gave up windows and got engrossed in Linux, one of the first things, I noticed was the lack of such software and small utility databases that can be used for storing data.
Yes, there is MySQL , the server based database that cannot be used on a desktop, of an average doctor in practice.
The doctor has to  buy proprietary utilities and as it is often is, they are very, very expensive.
It is interesting to note that tkFP was built by three, two lady doctors from USA (they lost their jobs when Medicare was re-structured0 and a Linux developer.
They with the help of the tkFP developer developed a working Electronic Medical Record System for their use in a small office room.
But GNUmed is a Debian innovation and it can be used by windows, mac and any Linux distribution once properly configured.
It is Hugh!
It has a server back-end utility and a client based utility for the desktop.
Now that cloud computing is taking shape this will be one of the best open source EMR (Electronic Medical Record) system for the use by a medical practitioner.
I am currently downloading over 600 MiB of software with add-ons which include imaging utilities (AMIDE).
The Ubuntu derivative for Medical use is called dcm4chee (Ubuntu 11.10 i386) and it has only the base system without any Linux utilities except web browser and few accessories.
I tried to install it with Internet connected and it took a long time and got hanged up.
What I did was to pull the Ethernet plug and install it and then download the GNUmed.
It is currently downloading very, very slowly (we have a very slow download speed) indeed.]

Once I finish and tested it I will be with you soon.
Purpose of this writing is to let you know that there is GNUmed Live DVD of 1 GiB for one to download (unfortunately point to point download) and test before using
For one who is interested  GNUmed Live is the beginning.
Unfortunately for me it got dislodged / disconnected for the third time and I am trying it for the fourth time and it is still hovering at 650 MiB.
That was the reason for taking the longer route to install it on Ubuntu.
Hope in future, a few of the distributions will include this package (bit large for a CD and labeled it as EMT enhanced Linux distribution.
There are many EMR software including medical imaging (software) and I have listed some of them below.
It is difficult to cover all of them but GNUmed is a good start up utility.
It is a large package if one installs with links to imaging software.
1. GnuMed , Open source EMR 
2. tkFP : an impressive open source EMR for linux
3. OpenEMR : Open source EMR Package 
4. Patient OS : Free and Open source EMR for Windows , OSX and Linux 
5. Ultimate EMR (Electronic Medical Record)
6. FreeMed : open source GPL-licensed  EMR 
7. OpenClinic :P HP web based EMR
8. ICD browser : Open source ICD-10 browser for Linux , Windows and PocketPC 
9. FreeMedForms

10. Sofa : medical simulation framework