Overcoming Health Inequality: Potential Benefits of a Patient-Centered Open-Source Public Health Info-structure

The past 20 years have witnessed an astonishing increase in computational power & an incredible reduction in the cost of contemporary computer systems, but the public health info-structure in most countries has not changed significantly. This article discusses the potential benefits of applying patient-centered info-structure at the primary medical "points-of-care" services, based on networked integrated open-source technology & programming standards to develop tools to detect & reduce health inequalities. Such systems, which could be implemented from the local to the national level, would enable the expansion of evidence-based medicine, clearer identification of health inequalities, & more accurate cost-benefit analyses. In addition, the public health sector could link such databases to traditional Electronic Patient Record (EPR) systems at a greatly reduced cost by promoting the use of standards-based formats for data transfer & storage. Ultimately, the new health info-structure would help decrease health inequity. In fact, developing countries like Brazil, India, & South Africa are well-positioned to take advantage of the open-source movement & "leapfrog" countries burdened by legacy systems. Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.