Healthcare Conference to Focus on Open Source Solutions

Panels, presentations, and Birds of a Feather meetings are certainly the highlight of next month's Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE), but that's not the only thing happening during the event. The Demonstrating Open Source Health Care Solutions (DOHCS) conference will be co-located with SCALE and both will get underway on Friday, February 20, 2009.

DOHCS is currently the only event that focuses exclusively on the use of open source solutions in health care. Industry professionals have their choice of two tracks -- one focuses on the business aspects of open source, the other on tutorials and live demonstrations.

The timing of the DOHCS conference couldn't be better. The talk on everyone's lips right now is about President-Elect Barak Obama's economic stimulus plans that appear to include a modernization of the current health care system, including "incentives for primary care physicians in small practices to adopt healthcare information technology."

ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn expects the government will push the adoption of electronic heath record-keeping methods delivered through cloud computing, but says it's still anyone's guess how much open source solutions will come into play. Although a final list of speakers for the conference haven't been announced yet, you can bet there will be plenty of conversation about how to integrate open source solutions into the impeding health care system overhaul.