Bell Eapen MD, PhD.

Open-source software (hereafter OSS) is a phenomenon that has revolutionized the software industry. OSS is supported by voluntary programmers, who regularly dedicate their time and energy for the common good of all. The question that immediately comes to mind is how is it sustainable? Will they continue to contribute their social hours forever? Read the programmers perspective here. But does it make sense for healthcare organizations to accept their charity always? And, how do these organizations that adopt OSS improve the sustainability of these projects? These are some of the factors to consider:

Do you have enough funding?

OSS supporters are humanists with an emancipatory worldview. OSS is fundamentally not designed for an organization that can sustain a paid product. Firstly, there is the ethical problem of exploiting the OSS community. But more importantly, healthcare organizations with enough funding tend to spend more on the long-term maintenance and customization of OSS. Hence, OSS is generally designed to be an option when you have no other option.

Does the project have a regional focus?

OSS projects generally aim to solve global problems. So be careful when you hear Canadian OSS or Danish OSS. Regional OSS is mostly just cheaper local products masquerading as OSS for funding or for other reasons. They are unlikely to have the support of the global OSS community and is prone to burnout.

Is the OSS really OSS?

Any OSS worth its salt will be on GitHub. If you cannot find the project on GitHub, you should definitely ask why.

Is it really popular?

Some OSS that masquerade as OSS claim that they have a worldwide network of developers. The GitHub stars and forks would be a reasonable indicator of the popularity. Consider an OSS for your organization only if it has a thousand stars on the GitHub sky.

Are you looking for a specific workflow support?

Is your workflow generic enough to be supported by a global network of volunteers? Well, OHIP billing workflow may not be the right process to seek OSSM support.

Do you need customization?

If you need a lot of customizations to support your workflow, then OSS may not be the ideal solutions. OSS is ideally suited for situations where you can use it out of the box.

Do you have the time?

Remember that OSS is supported by voluntary programmers. So if you need a feature, you make a request and wait. If your organization is used to demanding, then OSS is not for you. OSS project is not owned by anyone, so their priorities may be different from yours.

Do you have internal expertise?

It is far easier to use an OSS if you have someone supporting the project in your organization. OSS community tends to respect one of their own more than an organization.

Supporting Open-Source Software?

It is crucial for organizations that depend on an OSS for your day to day operations to support the project. If the project becomes unsustainable, it affects the organization too. You can support the project in many ways such as donations, coding support and infrastructural support.

Do you know what OSS means and stands for?

Does the higher management know what OSS means and stands for? It is common in healthcare organizations to adopt OSS focusing on the free aspect.

“Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer”.

Personally, I think the first point is the most important. OSS is designed and intended for use in areas where a paid option is not viable. In other scenarios in healthcare, you are likely to spend more for an open-source product than you spend for a regular product.

Finally, a quick mention of some noteworthy OSS in healthcare. OpenMRS is an open-source EMR started with the mission to improve healthcare delivery in resource-constrained environments. DHIS2 is web-based open-source public health information system with awesome visualization features including GIS, charts and pivot tables.