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!
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.
Hospital Escuela de Salud Mental chooses GNUHealth to improve their resources, clinical records and patient management
The World Health Organization defines health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
Unfortunately, this definition is far from being a reality in our societies. Instead of embracing the system of health, we live in the system of disease, ruled by a reactive, reductionist and unsustainable model of healthcare. The beautiful noble art and science of medicine is ill. Financial institutions and giant technological corporations are removing the human factor from medicine, transforming people and patients into clients. They are reducing the non-negotiable human right to healthcare to a privilege of a few.
Coming back to the formal definition of health, in the current system of disease very little is taken into account from the social and mental well-being . Today, many people with mental health conditions not only have to deal with the physiopathological aspects of the disorder, but also with the stigma, exclusion and invisibilization from the society.
But there is hope. Medicine is a social science, and GNUHealth is a social project with some technology behind. That feeling of optimism and hope has been reinforced in last week trip to Argentina and their people. In the end, medicine is about people interacting and taking care of people. Is about people before patients. I know them well, because I did my medical career in Argentina.
Group picture with health professionals from HESM, UNER, Government officials and GNU Solidario at the entrance of the leading Public Mental Health Hospital in Entre Ríos, Argentina
The Mental Health Hospital has chosen GNUHealth to improve the management of the institution resources, as well as to provide the best medical care for their community, both in outpatient and inpatient settings. Being able to properly identify every person who needs attention, and knowing the socio-sanitary, medical and clinical history in real time will make a big difference in the care of the individual.
The implementation of GNUHealth in this health institution will be lead by Prof. Dr. Fernando Sassetti and the department of public health studies of the University of Entre Ríos in the context of the GNU Health Alliance of Academic and Research Institutions agreement signed with GNU Solidario.
Health is an equilibrium of the inseparable and interconnected physical, social, mental and spiritual domains. Medicine is about taking into consideration and maintaining this body-mind-spirit-environment balance. This holistic approach to medicine is encoded in the genome of every nurse, psychologist, social worker and doctor from the Mental Health Hospital and the Primary care centers I got to know during these years in Entre Ríos, Argentina.
