Author: GNU Solidario

Luis Falcon, author of GNU Health, receives the One World One Family Humanitarian award in the field of Healthcare

Luis Falcon receives the One World One Family Humanitarian award in the field of Healthcare from Sri Madhusudan Sai at the World Cultural Festival, Sathya Sai Grama, Muddenahalli, India

Muddenahalli, August 17th 2025

Dr. Luis Falcón, author of GNU Health and founder of GNU Solidario, received the One World One Family Humanitarian award in the field of Healthcare from Sri Madhusudan Sai, founder of One World One Family mission.

Sri Madhusudan Sai delivering the One World One Family Humanitarian Award to Luis Falcón. on the right, Sri B.N. Narasimha Murthy

The award ceremony took place during the World Cultural Festival in Sathya Sai Grama, Muddenahalli, India, this Monday, August 17th.

The award reads:

Citation
ONE WORLD ONE FAMILY
HUMANITARIAN AWARD 2025

in the category of
Healthcare
is hereby conferred on

Dr. Luis Falcón
of Spain
on 17 August 2025 at Sathya Sai Grama, Muddenahalli

A Pioneer in Open Science for Global Healthcare

Dr Luis Falcón is honored for his outstanding contributions to advancing social medicine, ethical research, and healthcare accessibility worldwide. He is the founder of GNU Solidario and creator of GNU Health, a United Nations-adopted, award-winning health information system. His work has transformed hospitals and research institutions across the globe.

Through open-source innovation, compassionate care models, and his advocacy for cruelty-free, human-relevant research, Dr Falcón bridges medicine, technology, and ethics to serve both humanity and the planet. His dedication to integrating genomics, environmental health, and precision medicine continues to inspire efforts toward a more equitable and sustainable future for global health.

His commitment to health equity continues to inspire hope for a future where healthcare is truly ethical, inclusive, and accesible to all.

Sadugru Sri Madhusudan Sai
Founder, One World One Family Mission

At GNU Solidario, we are honored for this award from such a noble Mission as One World One Family, that shares the spirit of delivering universal health and education across the world. In November, the One World One Family mission will inaugurate the largest free hospital in the world, a 600 bed tertiary hospital that will keep on providing universal healthcare, free of charge, for those who need it most, not just in India, but across the globe.

Luis Falcón during his speech at Sathya Sai Grama auditorium

Whether is building hospitals, providing shelter and free education to the underprivileged or writing Free/Libre software to empower health professionals and their patients, we all have a common goal: Freedom and dignity to anyone in this world.

In 2011 – almost fifteen years ago from now – it was Richard Stallman, creator of the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation, who gave Luis Falcón the award for Social Benefit for the GNU Health project.

Since then, the GNU Health Hospital Information System has been adopted by countries Ministries of Health, multilateral organizations, laboratories, hospitals, health professionals, academic and research institutions across the world.

We are humbled and full of gratitude, joy and commitment to keep on fighting in advancing Social Medicine. In these times of darkness, the One World One Family mission is a beacon of hope, and we are very proud to be part of it.

The One World One Family Humanitarian in Healthcare awards beside the GNU and FSF award to GNU health for Social benefit

We want to make this award extensive to all the GNU community, and to any of you around the world that writes Free/Libre software for the betterment of the society.

Much love

The GNU Solidario team

Aportes del sistema libre GNU Health al cuidado de la salud: experiencias en Honduras y Argentina

Jornada: “Aportes del sistema libre GNU Health al cuidado de la salud: experiencias en Honduras y Argentina” – Viernes 13 de junio 2025 – Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos

Jornada: “Aportes del sistema libre GNU Health al cuidado de la salud: experiencias en Honduras y Argentina”

📅 Viernes 13 de Junio
📍 Centro de Innovación, Emprendimiento y Vinculación
🏛 Facultad de Ingeniería – UNER

En esta jornada exploraremos las experiencias prácticas y los avances en la implementación de GNU Health en el primer nivel de atención en salud.
En el marco de la Alianza Académica “GNU Health – UNER”, contaremos con la presencia de docentes invitados de la UNITEC (Universidad Tecnológica Centroamericana, Honduras), gracias al Programa de Movilidad Internacional Docente (PROMID) de la Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos (UNER).

Jornada "Aportes del sistema libre GNU Health al cuidado de la salud: Experiencias en Honduras y Argentina" En el marco de la Alianza Académica "GNU Health", con la presencia de profesores invitados de la UNITEC (Universidad Tecnológica Centroamericana) en el contexto del Programa de Movidlidad Internacional Docente (PROMID) de la Universidad Nacional de Entre Rïos


Esta jornada es una oportunidad para:
✅ Conocer las últimas actualizaciones de GNU Health directamente de su creador, el Dr. Luis Falcón (GNU Solidario).
✅ Descubrir casos reales de implementación en Argentina (CAPS D’Angelo) y Honduras (Municipio del Níspero).
✅ Participar en talleres prácticos para aprender a instalar y utilizar el sistema.
✅ Conectar con profesionales y académicos comprometidos con la salud pública y las tecnologías libres.

🔗 Reserva e-mail: saludpublica@ingenieria.uner.edu.ar

Programa

SecciónHoraTítulo
Apertura8:45Autoridades / Organizadores
Experiencias en el uso de GNU Health9:00Aportes de GNU Health al primer nivel de atención, una mirada retrospectiva. Bioing. Carlos Scotta y Bioing. Ingrid Spessotti (Grupo de Estudios en Salud Pública y Tecnologías Aplicadas, FIUNER)
9:45Experiencia en CAPS D’Angelo. Historia y presente de GNU Health como herramienta de gestión del cuidado de la salud – Lic. Teresita Calzia, Claudia Gudiño y equipo del CAPS
10:30Experiencia en el Municipio del Níspero. Honduras – Ing. Lucy Rodas e Ing. Elvin Deras (UNITEC, Honduras)
11:15Presentación de la nueva versión de GNU Health – Dr. Luis Falcón (GNU Solidario)

12:00Break
Taller de implementación del sistema14:00Primeros pasos con GNU Health: instalación y puesta en marcha del sistema – Ing. Elvin Deras (UNITEC, Honduras)
15:00Conociendo GNU Health: principales funcionalidades. Inga. Lucy Rodas (UNITEC, Honduras), Bioinga Maia Iturain, Bioinga. Ingrid Spessotti, Bioing Francisco Moyano (Grupo de Estudios en Salud Pública y Tecnologías Aplicadas, FIUNER)

16:00Break
Proyectos en curso16:20Empoderando a la comunidad: Desarrollo de un Portal Paciente para GNU Health – Ana Roskopf
16:40PID UNER: adaptando el sistema GNU Health para enfermería de salud mental – Aldana Gagliardi
17:10Incorporando sistemas para el acompañamiento y seguimiento en terreno – Bioinga. Maia Iturain
Cierre17:30El sueño de un sistema interoperable: aspectos técnicos y políticos de la salud digital – Lic Mario Puntín, Bioing. Francisco Moyano, Dr. Fernando Sassetti.

Suriname Public Healthcare System embraces GNU Health

The government of Suriname has adopted GNU Health for the Public Healthcare system.

Suriname has adopted GNU Health Hospital and Health Information System for their Public Healthcare system.

The adoption of GNU Health was announced during the press release celebrated last Friday, May 9th in Paramaribo, in the context of the country healthcare digitization campaign. They defined GNU Health as “An open source system that is both accessible and scalable”1. During the event, the Suriname Patient Portal and My Health App were also announced.

Press release. From left to right: Prof. Dr Jerry Toelsie, Minister Amar Ramadhin, Dr Aloysius Koendjbihari and Mr. Richard Mendes

The Minister of Health, Dr. Amar Ramadhin, made emphasis on the benefits of this digital transformation. “We move away from paper files and work towards greater efficiency and patient-oriented care experience”.

Digitization is supported by the IS4HIT Information Systems for Health Information Technology) program, an initiative of the Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO), whose delegates where at the conference, together with local health professionals.

The GNU Health Hospital and Health Information System – from the socioeconomic determinants of health to the molecular basis of disease

The GNU Health rollout will be done in phases throughout the different public health centers, starting at the Regional Service Centers (RGDs). The main focus is on Primary Care. Some of the tasks in the initial phase will be demographics, patient management, appointments, medical encounters, prescriptions, complementary tests orders and reporting. Training sessions to the local health professionals and technical team are being conducted, as well as the localization to Suriname.

Minister Ramadhin declared: “[Healthcare] Digitization is not an end in itself but a powerful means to make care more human-oriented, safer and more efficient.” . That’s where GNU Health fits right in. The Hospital and Health Information System of GNU Health has Social Medicine and primary care at its core. It excels in health promotion and disease prevention. When properly implemented and used, GNU Health is way more than just an Electronic Medical Record or a Hospital Management Information System. It empowers health professionals to assess the socioeconomic determinants of health and disease, taking a proactive approach to prevent and tackle the root of the diseases at individual, family and society level. The world is facing a pandemic of non-transmissible diseases. Obesity, diabetes, depression, cancer and neurodegenerative conditions are on the rise, with a appalling impact on the underprivileged. GNU Health will be a great ally for nurses, physicians, nutritionists and social workers of Suriname to find and engage those at higher risk. in the community.

The fact that GNU Health is Free/Libre software allows Suriname to download, study the system and adapt it to their needs and legislation, free of any kind of vendor lock-in. After all, health is -or it should be- a non-negotiable human right.

GNU Health is now part of Suriname to deliver a sustainable, interoperable, standard-based, privacy oriented, scalable digital healthcare solution for the country public health system.

A Digital Public Good. In 2022 GNU Health was declared a Digital Public Good by the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA). By definition, a Digital Public Good is open-source software, open data, open AI models, open standards, and open content that adhere to privacy and other applicable best practices, do no harm by design and are of high relevance for attainment of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This definition stems from the UN Secretary-General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation.

We are very proud and excited to see GNU Health deployed in Suriname national public health system and wish them the very best embracing the system as we envision it, a social project with some technology behind.

About GNU Health

GNU Health is an open science, community driven project from GNU Solidario, a non-profit humanitarian organization focused on Social Medicine. Our project has been adopted by public hospitals, research and academic institutions, governments and multilateral organizations around the world.

GNU Health is a GNU official package, awarded with the Free Software Foundation award of Social benefit and declared a Digital Public Good.

See also:

GNU Health : https://www.gnuhealth.org

GNU Solidario: https://www.gnusolidario.org

  1. https://www.surinametimes.com/artikel/suriname-zet-grote-stappen-richting-digitale-gezondheidszorg ↩︎

Caminos Cruzados and GNU Solidario join forces in healthcare for Gambia with GNU Health

We’re very happy to announce that “Caminos cruzados”, a Spanish non-for-profit organization, has signed an agreement with GNU Solidario to implement GNU Health in health institutions from Gambia.

María Eugenia Ramos, president of the organization traveled to Gran Canaria to meet with Luis Falcón, president of GNU Solidario to formalize the agreement and to plan the next actions in the Gambia.

During these three days we went through the main functionality of the GNU Health HMIS, with focus in the areas of Social Medicine, Primary Care and Public Health.

Classroom before the renovation (source: Caminos Cruzados)

Caminos Cruzados and GNU Solidario share the goals of health and education are indivisible entities. In fact education is health, and there is no healthy person or society without education.

Current state of some classrooms after renovation process (Source: Caminos Cruzados)

In the area of health, the NGO collaborates with the Ndungu Kebbeh health center, that takes care of a population around 8000 people, in addition to the surrounding villages.

Ndungu Kebbeh health center (Source: Caminos Cruzados)

We are very excited about this agreement, and can’t wait to start collaborating with Caminos Cruzados and the local team in Gambia to implement GNU Health in the different Health institutions. GNU Health will definitely help optimizing the internal processes and resources in the health institutions, and most importantly, will contribute to optimize the health promotion and disease prevention programs for the betterment of their people.

Resources:

Caminos Cruzados: http://www.caminoscruzados.org

GNU Solidario: https://www.gnusolidario.org

GNU Health: https://www.gnuhealth.org

The importance of Health Informatics in Kenya – Cirugía Solidaria and GNU Health

The team from Cirugía Solidaria has completed another successful medical and surgical campaign in the African continent, using GNU Health.

The team from Cirugía Solidaria has completed another successful campaign in the African continent.

Health professionals from Maragua hospital and Cirugía Solidaria with GNU Health Hospital Management System training session

The project took place in the hospital of Maragua, in Muranga county, Kenya. Dr. Victor López, from Cirugía Solidaria, describes the experiences during the seven day mission:

“In our latest project in Maragua, Kenya, we had 406 patient evaluations, and 142 of these patients underwent surgery. Some relevant information on the surgical procedures were 32 pediatric surgeries, 22 goiter, 11 cervical masses and 13 oncological surgeries. In addition, we detected 36 patients with cancer that were referred to the Kenya National Cancer Registry for treatment and followup.”

The mission checklist: In these type of projects, there are quite a bit of preparation that starts at home, in Spain, before taking the airplane to the final destination. In addition to the medical and surgical infrastructure, since the partnership with GNU Solidario, medical informatics components are now part of every mission from Cirugía Solidaria. For instance, the GNUHealth Hospital Management system instance is created, with the functionality and localization to meet the health institution needs and country needs. Network routers, laptops, batteries, backup devices…. everything has do be tested thoroughly in different contexts, because once you arrive to destination, there might not be Internet available.

Source: Cirugía Solidaria

Surgical training: In addition to the medical assistance and surgical procedures, Cirugía Solidaria also takes the Dr López noted, in addition, 11 health professionals have participated in training sessions related to surgery.

The role of GNUHealth: Dr. López went on highlighting the importance of GNUHealth. We want to highlight the GNU Health Hospital Management System in the our medical and surgical assistance. We have recorded all the patients, the evaluations and the details of the surgical procedures. In addition, we have addressed notes and details so we can followup when we return to the center. Moreover, GNU Health has been managed 100% by the health professionals from Kenya, they’ve have felt fully integrated in the initiative, being now part of the team. We are very grateful to the GNUHealth community for the enormous task they do to improve the assistance in countries and places that need it most.

We’d like to remark the importance of Dr. Lopez statement “GNU Health has been managed 100% by the health professionals from Kenya“. This is key, because not only the mission is very valuable to help those that need it most (medical and surgical), but it also generates local capacity and sustainable projects, for the betterment of our societies.

We are very grateful to Cirugía Solidaria and excited to keep on working side-by-side in upcoming projects, building local capacity and delivering a much needed universal healthcare. By looking at the statistics from the latest campaign, those numbers reflect lives that have been saved by anonymous heroes that leave their daily work aside to assist the underprivileged anywhere around the world.

Finally, some technical details for those of us who understand that Free/Libre software and open science are key for freedom, privacy and equity in healthcare: GNUHealth instance was installed on a Debian GNU/Linux 12 server, with GNU Health Hospital Information Management System component 4.2, Tryton 6.0 and PostgreSQL 15. Our gratitude to these fabulous pieces of software, that make GH a reality today.

Fundación La Vicuña joins GNU Health

GNU Solidario and the Spanish NGO Fundación La Vicuña ORL have signed a cooperation agreement to promote and implement the Health and Hospital Management component from GNUHealth in Africa and Spain

On Thursday, Feb 23rd, 2023, GNU Solidario and the Spanish NGO Fundación La Vicuña ORL have signed a cooperation agreement to promote and implement the Health and Hospital Management component from GNUHealth in those areas and institutions where Fundación La Vicuña has activities, mainly Spain and countries in Africa.

Fundación La Vicuña is a non-profit organization founded 15 years ago by a group of physicians, mostly ear, nose and throat specialists in Cadiz, Spain.

GNU Solidario and Fundacion La Vicuña share the goal of improving the lives of the underprivileged, through Social Medicine and universal access to healthcare. GNU Health will be a very valuable tool to assess the socioeconomic determinants of health and to minimize the impact in the vulnerable population, both in Spain and in the African continent. GNU Health will improve the management of health institutions and the daily medical practice where Fundación La Vicuña has missions. Patient evaluations, medical records, prescriptions, laboratory, surgeries and inpatient/hospitalization will be some of the areas that will benefit from GNU Health HMIS.

Casimiro García, president and founder of Fundación La Vicuña and Luis Falcón, founder and president of GNU Solidario, formalized the cooperation agreement this Thursday. In the coming weeks, GNU Solidario will train the team from Fnd. La Vicuña in the use of GNUHealth, and a development environment will be rolled out.

We are thrilled and looking forward to working hand in hand with Fundación la Vicuña, to put into practice the philosophy of open science and Libre software in healthcare for the betterment of our societies, delivering Social Medicine and dignity to those who need it most.

For more information you can visit Fundación la Vicuña homepage (in Spanish): http://www.fundacionlavicuna.org/