[Gnumed-devel] Re: Certification: Canada henceforth requires patient management software to be certified

[Jim Busser]

> I am collecting some information on 
> http://wiki.gnumed.de/bin/view/Gnumed/GmCertification

Now renamed to

        http://wiki.gnumed.de/bin/view/Gnumed/CertificationRequirements

Also, on another FLOSS list, was posted the following perspective  
which I think worth cross-posting:

1. The requirement for a demonstrable quality control system for a piece
of software that will be handling patient data is a no-brainer. I know
that I would want some reassurance that the software that was
responsible for my [project] had reliable quality control methods that  
were
certified by someone NOT involved in its development and distribution.

2. I noted that some of the contributors suggested or seemed to be
coming from a place that believes that this is just bureaucratic
bullshit. While the ISO certification may be bureaucratic bullshit it's
justifiable bullshit. Taken to the extreme some FLOSS advocates, with
their faith in open source validation and verification, will sound like
extreme capitalists - like the ones that argue for letting the market
take care of food inspection, or water quality, and the like.

3. Trying to avoid the letter of the law by saying that [a FLOSS EMR] is
not 'sold' will effectively mean that it can't be included in bid
documents for large systems where the requirements documents will
require that the software is certified. This will put [the FLOSS EMR]  
on the
fringe

4. The formation of a non-profit corporation to 'own' and certify
[the FLOSS EMR] will enable an organization to hang the certification  
on and
enable fund raising and grant applications. That is the model for many
of the successful FLOSS projects and there is no reason to think it
wouldn't work here.

You might also consider bringing in a big name eHealth IT firm to supply
resources - their money would be in the installation and support fees.
IBM does that with Apache for example.