Open Source Software Helps Provide Healthcare Where It's Needed

The benefits of open source software use are not restricted to up-and-coming businesses and forward-thinking municipal governments in the developed world.

While it's great that the technology can provide a relief to stretched budgets in those cases, it can also provide much more critical assistance in developing countries, where IT systems can directly impact medical aid and other humanitarian efforts, according to a report from Wired magazine.

Problems caused by a lack of trained medical personnel in Nigeria, for example, are exacerbated by poor record keeping and technological availability, the publication said. One group, however, is working to create a medical database - based on open source software technology - to help overworked caregivers in the African country maintain better records.

The system being developed by Evelyn Castle and Adam Thompson and their eHealth Nigeria nonprofit is based on the OpenMRS format, which was created in 2004, the news source said...