Misys has released the code for its Misys Connect software to open-source developers, making good on a promise the company made in October 2007.
Misys Healthcare Systems released code for its Misys Connect
EMR interoperability software to the
open-source community Feb. 8, ending months of industry speculation about
whether the company would make good on its promise to commit to open source.
Misys Connect is a Web-based clinical data viewer that shares
patient information across any infrastructure, regardless of vendor, allowing
caregivers at any facility quick access to a patient's medical history. The
code was released to open-source developers during SCALE (the Southern
California Linux Expo) held from Feb. 8-10 in Los Angeles.
In October 2007, Misys CEO
Mike Lawrie said the company would release code for Misys Connect by the end of
February 2008 to drive the adoption of EMR
open interoperability standards among health care facilities.
"We're looking to link one vendor's EMR
to other vendors' EMRs. We're trying to introduce collaboration into a
traditionally proprietary industry," said Tim Elwell, Misys vice president
of open-source initiatives for health care.
Currently, sharing of patient information is a mostly paper-based
process that can delay treatment and increase costs and errors, especially in
an emergency situation. Elwell said automating the process and using open
standards for interoperability can improve patient care by making available a
much richer, more complete information set.
Elwell, formerly national sales director for IBM
Global Services, was appointed in November to head up the open-source
initiative. Prior to working with IBM,
Elwell held positions at Raytel, a small medical informatics company, and was deputy
director of Columbia University's
Center for Advanced Technology.
Misys's move toward open source will deprive the company of
between 15 and 16 percent of initial license fee revenues that formerly came
from the software, Elwell said, but the company will focus on services and
support surrounding the open-source offerings to generate revenues.
Health Care 
