The 10th edition of the GNU Health Conference – GHCon2025 – will be this December 20th and it will be broadcasted from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
In the context of GHCon, it will take place the XVIII International Workshop on eHealth in Emerging Economies (IWEEE). IWEEE is about Social Medicine and addressing the reality of the underprivileged around the world. We will be sharing experiences with those working in field of Social Medicine.
Presentation submissions and guidelines
The deadline for submitting your presentation is Sunday, December 7th, and the presentation in PDF needs to be turned over by Monday December 15th.
This year GHCon will be online, and the presentations will be delivered via Jitsi. Each presentation has a 30 minute slot, plus and additional 10 minutes for questions. We count on your cooperation so we can have a smooth program and transition between speakers.
We will be publishing the program by Wednesday, December 10th.
GNU Health en español
Given the vast amount of implementations and the large Spanish community of GNU Health, this year we’ll divide the talks in two sections based on the language of the presentations and talks:
Morning session : English
Afternoon session: Spanish
We believe this model enriches GHCon and provides an opportunity for those who want to share their experiences in Spanish. Of course, everyone is welcome to join both sessions. The afternoon session is also good in terms of timezone for our friends in Latin America.
If you want to get the coolest t-shirt, and, most importantly, support our cause for freedom, equity and privacy in healthcare, you can buy the GHCon2025 from the GNU Solidario online store.
Happy Hacking!
We are excited to deliver this new edition of annual GNU Health conference, the perfect moment of the year to get together and keep on building the community around the world.
Looking forward to seeing you at GHCon2025, the Free Software and Social Medicine conference!
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.
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).
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.
Aportes 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)
9:45
Experiencia 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
10:30
Experiencia en el Municipio del Níspero. Honduras – Ing. Lucy Rodas e Ing. Elvin Deras (UNITEC, Honduras)
11:15
Presentación de la nueva versión de GNU Health – Dr. Luis Falcón (GNU Solidario)
12:00
Break
Taller de implementación del sistema
14:00
Primeros pasos con GNU Health: instalación y puesta en marcha del sistema – Ing. Elvin Deras (UNITEC, Honduras)
15:00
Conociendo 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)
16:00
Break
Proyectos en curso
16:20
Empoderando a la comunidad: Desarrollo de un Portal Paciente para GNU Health – Ana Roskopf
16:40
PID UNER: adaptando el sistema GNU Health para enfermería de salud mental – Aldana Gagliardi
17:10
Incorporando sistemas para el acompañamiento y seguimiento en terreno – Bioinga. Maia Iturain
Cierre
17:30
El sueño de un sistema interoperable: aspectos técnicos y políticos de la salud digital – Lic Mario Puntín, Bioing. Francisco Moyano, Dr. Fernando Sassetti.
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 fromGNU 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.
We’re excited to announce the IX International GNU Health Conference, that will take place in beautiful Sicily, Italy, at the University of Palermo this December 15th.
Mount Etna rising over suburbs of Catania, Sicily (Wikimedia)
The GNU Health Conference (GHCon) is the annual conference that brings together enthusiasts and developers of GNU Health, the Libre digital health ecosystem. The conference will have thematic sessions, lightning talks and implementation cases to get to know the GNU Health and other Free/Libre software communities from around the world.
We will show the upcoming features of the Health and Hospital Information System, standards, security, privacy, the GNU Health Federation and MyGNUHealth (the Personal Health Record).
GHCon2024 – The IX International GNU Health Conference
The XVII International Workshop on eHealth in Emerging Economies (IWEEE) is about Social Medicine and addressing the reality of the underprivileged around the world. There will be workshops to debate, and share experiences from humanitarian organizations and from those working in field of Social Medicine.
In the evening we will announce and honor the winners of the GNU Health Social Medicine awards.
We are counting on you to get the most out of the conference. Most importantly, we want you to have fun, feel at home, and enjoy being part of the GNU Health community.
It’s no news. They’re stealing the Internet from us and we must do something about it. What it used to be a fun, collaborative hacking space is now ruled by corporations and narcissistic billionaires. Proprietary centralized social networks have become a space for hate, discrimination and propaganda. The messages that you see are those that they want you to see. Your data is no longer yours. They have become a massive thought control machine. You read what they want you to read and, in the end, you will end up writing and doing what they want you to write and to do. It’s a matter of time and money, and they have both.
These corporate-driven social networks are deceiving. They make us fall into false assumptions in a distorted reality. This delusion hits both individuals and organizations. For instance, in GNU Solidario and GNU Health, we fight for Social Medicine and for the rights of human and non-human animals. When we want to share an event, to make a fundraising campaign or to denounce human or animal rights violations we want the message to reach out as many people as possible. We could think, why not share it with our followers on Twitter / X? Experience has it, corporate social networks have not really made a difference in the outcomes. They will promote or “shadow ban” the message depending on who wrote it. You can guess the results for those who fight against neoliberal capitalism.
“The many branches of the Fediverse” (credits: Axbom)
Social pressure exists, and is not trivial to overcome. Many fear that leaving proprietary centralized social networks that have been using for years will result in losing the status and contacts they’ve built throughout the years. Again, it’s not really a big deal. And we have great news, there are decentralized, community-driven alternatives! Some of those alternatives are Mastodon, Friendica or Diaspora. Not only social networks, today there is an free software alternative to pretty much any proprietary solution (search engines, scientific programs, multimedia, office suites, databases, games…)
The GNU head, symbol of the GNU project
There is a correlation between Free Software, freedom and privacy. The more Free Software, the more freedom and privacy you enjoy. The contrary also applies: Proprietary software is inversely proportional to our freedom, both at individual and collective level. There is no transparency, no privacy, no control, no rights in proprietary applications, networks or clouds.
In the last decades, the tech giants have been busy in a campaign to dismantle the Free Software philosophy and community. The “open source” euphemism is one of them. Richard Stallman (creator of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation) has been warning us about the dangers of “Open Source”. Free societies are built with free software, not with open source. I know some members in the free software community use both terms interchangeably, but I am convinced using the “Free Software” terms not only delivers software, but also freedom to our society.
Internet is no longer fun or empathetic. It has become a hostile and toxic environment, the medium for corporations and elites that increase concentration of power, social gradient and create very unjust societies. They use our data to control individuals and governments. We certainly don’t want to be part of that.
It is our moral duty to bring back spirit of solidarity that RMS delivered in the late 80’s, and that made possible the GNU movement, the best operating systems, programming languages, web servers and database engines for everyone. The GNU project was the inspiration for projects like GNU Health, helping millions around the globe, delivering freedom and equity in healthcare.
In the end, it is up to us to embrace federated, community driven social networks and free software applications. Millions of individuals, activists, free software projects, NGOs and even the European Union have already joined the Fediverse and Mastodon. It only takes an initial push to break the social pressure to set ourselves and our societies free.
Collage with some members of the GNU Health community around the world
Citing our friends from GNUnet: “You broke the Internet… we’ll build a GNU one”.
Sea-Eye Search and Rescue missions in the Mediterranean and how GNU Health can help them
The title of this article, “Migrar, migrant, migràrem“, comes from a beautiful poem written by Laia Porcar[1], that inspired the strikingly profound painting by Sara Belles [2] “Jo per tu, fill meu“. The artists reflect the migrants ordeal to provide a better life to their children and families, even at the cost of losing their own lives.
GNU Health[3] is a Social project with some technology behind and the mission at Sea-Eye is one of the best examples. After all, GNU Solidario[4] is a NGO that focuses in the advancement of Social Medicine.
We live a world of injustice. Concentration of power, social gradient and poverty rates keep on the rise. Artificial intelligence is on the hands of mega private corporations, targeting our privacy and feeding the macabre business of war. The fight for scarce natural resources such as lithium or coltan creates coups in impoverished countries. Nature and non-human animals are used and abused as mere commodities. Our world turns a blind eye to the systematic crushing and eradication of civilian population by powerful armies. As a result, we live in a world where migration is not a choice, but the only way out for millions of human beings, even at the risk of becoming anonymous victims in the Atlantic ocean or Mediterranean sea mass graveyards.
“Jo per tu, fill meu”, by Sara Belles
But there is hope. The Sea-Eye mission is the end result of a network of solidarity, cooperation and empathy. The Free Software movement started by Richard Stallman[5]; Julian Sassenscheidt message in Mastodon and his presentation at GNU Health Con 2023[6] ; The work of our representative in Germany, Gerald Wiese; the Chaos Computer Club[7]; the team from L’Aurora[8] providing logistic support to the Search and Rescue vessels; the phenomenal Sea-Eye family who made me feel at home: The cook, crew on deck, the logistics and medical team who stood stoically intensive hours of GNU Health training. Of course, Selene, the heart of GNU Solidario and the one that looks after the human and non-human family members while I’m away.
You will hardly see these people in the news, because most corporate-backed media neglect them and their organizations. Unlike some billionaire “philanthropists” that take the media spotlight, these anonymous heroes stand on the right side of history, making a difference on the present and future of those who need it most, with very limited resources.
Collage of several pictures during my stay at the Sea-eye
We’re very happy and proud to see that GNU Health can be of help to Sea-Eye in tasks such as guests registration, health evaluations, reporting, statistics and stock management. This is just the beginning and we will be optimizing and adding functionality on successive missions. That said, GNU Health will always play a secondary role compared to picking up somebody from the water and giving them a welcoming hug. Again, we’re a social project with a bit of technology behind.
Drawings made by the children rescued at the Sea-eye
I’d like to finish with a reflection on the picture I took to some of the drawings done by children during their stay at the Sea-Eye. The drawings exist because the Sea-eye crew rescued those kids. Otherwise, their corpses would be at the bottom of the Mediterranean sea, along with thousands who tragically perished trying to find dignity in this world. Thank you, Sea-eye. You are priceless.
A final note: shame on those countries and governments that detain and punish Search and Rescue vessels. Saving lives is not a crime.
Love, freedom and happy hacking
You can obtain Sara Belles painting and Laia Porcar poem from L’Aurora solidarity shop[8]
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.
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
Surgicaltraining: 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.
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.
Fundación Jérôme Lejeune Argentina adopts GNU Health for the research and management of Trisomy 21 and other intellectual disabilities of genetic origin.
We start 2023 with exciting news for the medical and scientific community!
GNU Health has been adopted by Fundación Jérôme Lejeune, a leading organization in the research and management of trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome) and other intellectual disabilities of genetic origin.
Jérôme Lejeune foundation has its headquarters in France, with offices in Argentina, the United States and Spain.
On December 2022, the faculty of engineering from the University of Entre Rios, represented by the dean Diego Campana and the head of the school of Public Health, Fernando Sassetti, formalized the agreement with the director of the Jêrome Lejeune foundation in Argentina, Luz Morano.
The same month, I met in Madrid with the medical director and IT team of Fundación Jérôme Lejeune Spain.
Luz Morano declared “[GNU Health] goes beyond the Foundation, providing the health professionals the specific features to manage a patient with trisomy 21. We are putting a project in the hands of humanity“
[GNU Health] goes beyond the Foundation, providing the health professionals the specific features to manage a patient with trisomy 21. We are putting a project in the hands of humanity
Luz Morano, director of Fundación Jérome Lejeune, Argentina
Morano also stated: “GNU Health will pave the road for the medical management, and let us focus on our two other missions: Research and the defense of patient rights“
GNU Health counts with specific modules for genomics and bioinformatics
The agreement is in the context of the GNU Health Alliance of Academic and Research Institutions that UNER has with GNU Solidario. In this sense, Fernando Sassetti explained “It provides tools for an integrative approach of those people with certain pathologies that due to the reduced number are not managed in the best way. This will benefit the organizations and health professionals, that today lack the means to do so in the best way and timely manner. It benefits the patients, in their right to have an integral health record.”
Research and Open Science
The adoption of GNUHealth by the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation opens new exciting avenues for the scientific community. In addition to the clinical management and medical history, GNU Health will enable scientists to dive into the fields of genomics, epigenetics and exposomics, gathering and processing information from multiple contexts and subjects, thanks to the distributed nature of the GNU Health Federation.
The GNU Health HMIS counts many packages and features, some of them of special interest for this project. In addition to the specific customizations for the foundation, the packages already present in GNUHealth, such as obstetrics, pediatrics, genomics, socioeconomics or lifestyle will provide a holistic approach to the person with trisomy 21 and other related conditions.
All of this will be done using exclusively Free/Libre software and open science.
People before Patients
Trisomy 21 poses challenges for the individual, their family, health professionals and the society. The scientific community needs to push the research to shed light on the etiology, physiopathology and associated clinical manifestations, such as heart defects, blood disorders or Alzheimer’s.
Most importantly, as part of the scientific community, we must put a stop to the discrimination and stigmatization. We must tear down the barriers and walls built on our societies that prevent the inclusion of individuals with trisomy 21.
As part of this effort, GNU Health provides the WHO International Classification on Functioning, disability and health (ICF). In other words, is not just the health condition or disorder we may have, but how the environmental factors and barriers influence the normal functioning and integration as individuals in the society. Many times, those physical, artificial barriers present in our daily lives are way more pernicious than the condition itself.
The strong focus of GNU Health in Social Medicine, and the way we perceive medicine as a social science will help improving the life of the person living with trisomy 21, and contribute to the much needed healing process in our societies. We need to work on the molecular basis of the health conditions, but little can be done if without empathetic, inclusive and supportive societies so people can live and enjoy life with dignity, no matter their health or socioeconomic status.
Projects like this represent the spirit of GNU Health and make me immensely proud to be part of this community.
Happy and healthy hacking! Luis Falcon, MD President, GNU Solidario
On a day like this, October 12th, 2008, I registered the “Medical” project at SourceForge. Fourteen years later, GNU Health has become the Libre digital health ecosystem used by governments, hospitals, laboratories, research institutions and health professionals around the globe.
I want to sincerely thank all the professionals who believed in the project since early on… from small clinics in the African rain forest, to many public primary care institutions in Argentina, to the largest hospital in India and Asia (AIIMS).
GNU Health, the Libre digital health ecosystem
Institutions such as the University of Entre Rios in Argentina, Leibniz University Hanover, the United Nations Institute for Global Health, the World Health organization and the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), Digital Public Goods Alliance, have helped the GNU Health project, by providing training, implementations or valuable resources in areas related to coding standards and medical genetics.
Many thanks to our sponsors, particularly Thymbra and openSUSE who have been supporting GNU Health since day one, sponsoring our annual congress (GNUHealthCon). In addition, openSUSE has donated raspberry pi devices for development and for implementation projects, as well as packaging GNU Health for their distribution. Thank you Fosshost, for all this years of hosting the GNU Health HMIS and the BigBlueButton for our conferences!
Thank you European Open Source Observatory Repository (OSOR) / Joinup and the Free Software Foundation Europe for your work in making GNU Health a reality in Europe, specially in the Public Health sector.
Immense gratitude to the GNU operating system, particularly, to Richard Stallman -father of the Free Software movement- who in 2011 declared GNU Health an official GNU project. Since that day, all the components of the GH ecosystem are hosted in Savannah.
GNU Health is an official Package
The GNU Health ecosystem would not exist today without the Libre Software community. Excellent Libre projects like Tryton, LibreOffice, PostgreSQL, Flask, Python, GNUPG, Apache, and many others make GNU Health a reality. We’re so happy to count with our sister community Orthanc, a great Libre Medical Imaging project that makes the perfect GNU Health partner in hospital settings and diagnostic imaging.
Last but not least: Thank you to the core team and to the community around the world: Developers, testers, translators, artists, documentation team, podcasters and journalists … I can not name you all… but the success of GNU Health belongs to you.
On a day like this, 14 years ago, the revolution for freedom and equity in healthcare began. And this is just starting…. at GNU Solidario, we’ll keep on advancing Social Medicine, and fighting so health remains a non-negotiable human right, no matter where you live. After all, GNU Health is a Social project with a little bit of technology behind.
GNU Solidario and Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH) are now partners in GNU Health, the Libre digital health ecosystem.
This agreement makes the German university a member of the GNU Health Alliance of academic and research institutions, to work on the research and development of GNU Health, the award-winning Libre digital health ecosystem.
The partnership was signed on February 2nd, 2022, by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gabriele von Voigt, head of the Computational Health Informatics department at Leibniz Universität Hannover and Dr. Luis Falcón, president of GNU Solidario.
University of Hanover main building. Source: LUH
We are excited and looking forward to cooperate and research in areas such as privacy, distributed health networks, bioinformatics, hospital management or Personal Health Records. Leibniz Universität Hannover has been using the GNU Health Hospital Management System component for quite sometime now internally, in their health informatics department. This agreement will boost even more the adoption of the libre health ecosystem.
Some of the components from the GNU Health digital health ecosystem
Leibniz Universität Hannover is a reference for the adoption of GNU Health in European universities, serving as a model of open science and free/libre software in public academic institutions. Moreover, being part of the GNU Health Alliance of Academic and Research Institutions opens up horizons to collaborate with other universities around the world.
We are positive that this agreement will help promoting the adoption of GNU Health and Libre Software within the healthcare system and biomedical research in Europe.
The logo of Leibniz University is a visual Leibniz quote. It shows the binary number system as first outlined by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in his New Year’s letter of January 1697 to Duke Rudolf August of Wolfenbüttel.
About Leibniz Universität Hannover:
The Leibniz University Hannover, long form in German Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover, is a public research university located in Hanover, Germany. Founded on 2 May 1831, it is one of the largest and oldest science and technology universities in Germany. It has nine faculties which offer 190 full and part degree programs in 38 fields of study.It was named University of Hannover in 1978. In 2006, it was named after Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the 18th century mathematician and philosopher. In 2018, Leibniz University Hannover was adopted as the official English name.
Leibniz University Hannover is a member of TU9, an association of the nine leading Institutes of Technology in Germany. It is also a member of the Conference of European Schools for Advanced Engineering Education and Research (CESAER), a non-profit association of leading engineering universities in Europe. The university sponsors the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB), the largest science and technology library in the world
The GNU Health Alliance of Academic and Research Institutions is a GNU Solidario program comprising a global network of academic and research institutions around the world with the mission of provide a sustainable solutions to the current social and biomedical challenges, using GNU Health and Free Software components.
