Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if there was an open source EMR? *nix backend with browser interface. The huge amount of money saved could pay for support, customisation and implementation. Perhaps I’m being naive, but a system where the institution has more ownership would go down well I think. We are about to get an Epic EMR and all the clinical staff are basically expecting a catastrophe.
The VA's old system (VistA) is that open source solution - but other hospitals didn't want to use or buy it. I think the EMR industry is driven more by safety, liability, and revenue for hospitals (in that order) than by patient/physician desired features or security. It's also difficult to build tooling that interconnects across all of the medical specialties - and with the amount of customization that some provider…
Re: Hospitals are a weak spot in U.S. cybersecurity
#131You could look at this from a couple of angles. From the healthcare business side, it's controlling costs, plus either regulatory compliance or revenue support (e.g., through provider lock-in).
From the tech side, it's whether something developed 'in house' can be 'sold' to the private market: the economics about government institutions 'crowding out' private ventures argues that publicly funded innovations should not deny private profit opportunities. In the public sector this is controlled with ethics regulations that prevent organizations (and individuals) from benefiting from that effort: they legally cannot market or sell that work _at all_.
With an open-source system, it's (business) risk management and (provider) lock-in concerns. Proprietary systems are used to satisfy both. Safety risks arising from cybersecurity concerns are almost always chained to something already managed by existing processes with an insurer at the end of the line.