Nursing Informatics

1. Describe two (2) nemesis of Free and Open-Source Software, and how it affects health
care informatics
Free and open source software (F/OSS) movements is being expanded beyond the
traditional constituency of software hackers to encompass a larger group of non-expert
users and other advocacy organizations. In so doing, the initial goals of free software
advocates are being dramatically expanded to include broader aims of digital freedom
and social justice. Utilizing the concept of social movements from political sociology,
first outlines the key aims and discourses surrounding the free software movement by
discussing the emergence and development of F/OSS efforts such as the GNU/Linux
operating system and the GNU Public License (GPL). Second, It provide examples of
how the free software discourses have been adopted, altered, and expanded by a
number of organized groups over the past decade. These groups, such as the Creative
Commons, digital privacy advocates, and global development agencies, have adopted
some of the core concepts of free software, while greatly expanding their meaning and
purpose to suit their own advocacy aims. Finally, It argue that the adoption of free
software discourse among these newer groups is also having a recursive effect upon
the free software movement by encouraging free software advocates to conceptualize
F/OSS as part of a broader movement of digital rights and social justice. the prospects
for the emergence of a larger technological and cultural freedom movement in the future
are assessed.
It affects healthcare informatics by solving many of the problems that health information
systems currently face, including lack of interoperability and vendor lock-in, costs and
difficulty of record and system maintenance given the rate of change and size of the
information needs of the health domain, and lack of support for security, privacy, and
consent. A number of Open Source/Free Software projects exist that seek to develop
systems that will address some or all of these issues. It is suggested that in healthcare,
as in many other areas, the development of Open Source Software/Free Software could
provide much needed competition to the current relatively closed market of commercial,
proprietary software and so encourage innovation but at the same time promoting
interoperability, due to Open Source Software/Free Software conforming more to
standards and the source code being open to inspection and adaptation. This, it is
suggested, would lead to lower cost, higher quality systems that are more responsive to
changing clinical needs.