Re: [Health] Does gnu health support medical devices like scanners etc?

[Chris]

> Several dentist in our region have recently suffered a virus attack on
> their Windows XP clients.  The problems initially manifested
> themselves when they could no longer open the software they use to
> process their X-ray images.
> Apparently upgrading to Windows 8 would mean that they have to buy a
> proprietary driver for this X-ray device which costs about 8000 EUR!

Wow! I'm sorry to hear that. It is becoming increasingly difficult to
handle the extraordinary cost of medical devices and software.

> If gnu health can support such devices while at the same time offer
> improved facilities to keep track of patient records and the like I
> may be able to convince him and his colleagues to give gnu health a
> try.

If you mean, can gnu health store medical images? The answer is yes. If
you mean, does gnu health support specific devices? The answer is no.
I think you have a great point: many of these devices (x-ray machines,
etc.) are locked-in and closed. The subtle trap of software and device
lock-in is especially worrisome in the medical environment. The
solution, it seems to me, is loosely-coupled design. 

GNU Health is built on top of an application framework (Tryton) which
handles the lower-level bits of user interface, data management, etc...
and everything below that level (the OS, hardware drivers, filesystem,
etc.) is mostly invisible to gnu health. Closed hardware firmware is
a generally difficult problem and plagues every place you find embedded
systems (which is everywhere nowadays). Think routers, ATMs, airport
xray machines, voting machines, etc. Writing open source drivers is very
important (and difficult!) but, I believe, beyond the scope of this
project.

I hope I informed, even though I'm sorry to say that I didn't reassure
much.

-C