I know it’s been awhile since I posted, however looking the the normal stream of news and events this morning a jewel popped out and I wanted to share it with you and get your thoughts.  It seems there is a gentleman who has been diagnosed with cancer.  He was somewhat dismayed that his medical files were in a proprietary format and or paper that could not be easily shared.  His thought process is that if he can share the information with as many people as possible he may find someone with the answer to cure him.  That in mind he acquired his medical file and converted it to all open source formats which he then was able to share with the world over his website.  The responses have been pouring in from everywhere.  This has spawned a ripple effect stretching out to government and potentially beyond.  Check out the full story here.  What are your thoughts on this?  If you had a terminal illness or even just a serious one that you were willing to share with others.  Would you open source and publish your medical records or parts of them  to network your way to people that could potentially help you or at least lend moral support?

What would be the down side to this argument?  Potential abuse and misuse of the data by insurance companies, governments, or other people or organizations?  Certainly there would need to be security and a fine grained control that you as the patient had the ability to control.  So is this a slippery slope or a grand idea in the making?  I think it has the potential to be both.  In my own case if I had a terminal illness, like this gentleman I would be exploring every avenue available to me.    From a technology standpoint it’s certainly viable.  Being a veteran my VA medical records are already digital and I can download them in open formats or formats that I can covert to an open standard.  The push to move everyone’s medical records to a digital format has been underway in the US for several years now based on a government mandate.  That said it’s not more than a stones throw from digital proprietary to digital open source.  I would like to hear your thoughts.  Until then have a great open source day!

– The Source