The government recently released open source software that is designed to allow federal agencies and private organizations to transfer healthcare information between their systems.
I am a fan of open source, but have some initial concerns about the government running various aspects of our proposed national healthcare record on open source software.
If the software is going to be open source, I fear that it will be more difficult to protect the healthcare information that is transferred utilizing this system. More people would have access to the software or to create hooks into the software for various purposes. Additionally, could the resources needed to manage opens source projects like this become more expensive than privately developed software that was developed off of a government contract. Remember, open source software has its hidden costs in the specialized people needed to manage it.
On the other hand, open source software certainly offers flexibility and ingenuity as there can be many people working on various aspects of the system, designing robust and customized solutions for almost any scenario.
Again, I am a fan of open source software, but without all the details yet, it is hard to know if open source is really the right choice for the government. Regardless, it will be interesting to see how this develops in the next year or two.
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