IBM hopes open source will open healthcare IT silos

Though the ability to collaborate and share information is a critical component of modern IT infrastructures, it is often lacking in healthcare environments, where siloed information is the frustrating norm. Unfortunately, the information is housed on proprietary computing architectures that can't always be accessed by different platforms.

So IBM said last week it is open sourcing technology to the Eclipse Foundation's Open Healthcare Framework project in an effort to bridge the information silos. "Medical facilities and doctors all have their own ways of communicating and distributing medical information much of it hard copy," said Scott Handy, vice president of worldwide Linux and open source at IBM. "There is no good way to transmit medical information because there is no standard."

Even with a standard in place, solutions would still be difficult to come by, which is why IBM is open sourcing an implementation of a healthcare information exchange standard.

To learn more about IBM's open source initiative:
- check out this article at internetnews.com