In April, 2009, CONNECT was launched to enable healthcare providers across the United States to "connect" to the National Health Information Network (NHIN). Federal agencies teamed up to create this software suite, and it was clear that the software had to be scalable, affordable, and easily accessible. Therefore, the choice was easily made that open source software would be the best solution.
Now health organizations across the country can simply be directed to the CONNECT site and download the software. This software was built by those who have formed the national health IT system standards to access NHIN and is therefore known to meet the standards criteria for health systems along with security measures in ensuring medical information. Therefore, it is clear that the government has become a supporter of the health open source movement. With the extreme pressures for the government to constantly minimize healthcare costs and enable everyone access to the systems, open source appears to be the best choice. We will simply have to watch the adoption rates of the CONNECT system to see if it truly becomes a success.
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Katie,
ReplyDeleteIs this part of Obama's plan for health care reform, or was has this been in the works for a long time? It seems like if they just launched it, they would have had to have been working on it for a long time, but at the same time it seems like it would fit in with his plan.
--Sadie
Hi Sadie,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. To address your question, this was not specifically delineated as part of the "health care reform" plan. However, it was surely highlighted on a general level in Obama's push to reform the health care system. He was able to see the need for all of the systems to talk to each other, so this is simply a solution to that insight.
Thanks again!
Katie