Open source healthcare and government body management software
Having worked for private companies that wrote software for government bodies, in the past, I have been really concerned about the amount of money that was charged to these bodies, for software. I have seen government organisations being charged £30M for server hardware. The company I worked at charged nearly £3000 per user licence, and 20% maintenance per year, and up to £250,000 per month for help desk support. The help desk, by the way was only staffed by two people! Frankly, I was horrified. All of the money for these services came from the tax payer, and the owner of our company was of the opinion that people such as himself (the wealthy) shouldn't have to pay tax - he was a subscriber of the trickle down mentality.
There is something inherently bent about the software industry, when dealing with government bodies. Vendors seem to treat these bodies as being technically ignorant or intellectually sub normal with huge expendable budgets simply asking to be exploited. In an age of austerity, where people are being asked to put up with bi-weekly rubbish collections, lower staff levels in hospitals, and tolerate a reduction in police levels, why the hell should we be forking out hundreds of millions of pounds to hardware and software vendors every time a government body is re-branded, or re-structured on the whim of a new minister?
I have seen organisations spend millions on new IT infrastructure and software, even though they are aware that they are due to be scrapped, and re-structured only a year later. What do you think happens to the hardware? Is it re-purposed, or given to other GO's? Nope, its thrown in the skip. When the GO is re-structured, software vendors are invited to re-tender for contracts again, and the old software is ditched, ready for the lucky new vendor to roll out their version. The organisation then needs to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds re-training all of their staff to use the new software - and that takes considerable time, and management.
I'm so concerned about this, that I think policies should be put in place to govern the re-use of hardware, and avoid the constant re-tendering for software at every change of government or re-structuring phase. One of the best ways to avoid the repetitive purchasing of over priced software is to set up collaborative projects, that allow government bodies to work together to build software suitable for several bodies performing similar tasks.That way, health care bodies in separate parts of the country can use Open Source software, building and adapting it, in the process. Of course, all bodies involved would need to contribute in some way, but the costs could be dramatically reduced, if the development were managed well.
To this end, we, at Redbrook Technology, intend to start a project for the management of health care bodies, and make it open source, and freely available for health care organisations world wide. We will spend time instigating, and developing the main base of code, and other resources for this project, and allow health care bodies from around the world to use this software freely, and contribute to it, for the greater good. I will be writing more about this exciting new project soon, and we will be busy deciding on the scope, and features requirements. We will be meeting with government bodies to determine their needs, and discuss the collaborative elements. Of course, we need to take into account that there are a wide range of legislative factors across the country, and foreign collaborators will also need to be catered for.
If you have an interest in this project, please contact us at - info@redbrooktech.com
There is something inherently bent about the software industry, when dealing with government bodies. Vendors seem to treat these bodies as being technically ignorant or intellectually sub normal with huge expendable budgets simply asking to be exploited. In an age of austerity, where people are being asked to put up with bi-weekly rubbish collections, lower staff levels in hospitals, and tolerate a reduction in police levels, why the hell should we be forking out hundreds of millions of pounds to hardware and software vendors every time a government body is re-branded, or re-structured on the whim of a new minister?
I have seen organisations spend millions on new IT infrastructure and software, even though they are aware that they are due to be scrapped, and re-structured only a year later. What do you think happens to the hardware? Is it re-purposed, or given to other GO's? Nope, its thrown in the skip. When the GO is re-structured, software vendors are invited to re-tender for contracts again, and the old software is ditched, ready for the lucky new vendor to roll out their version. The organisation then needs to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds re-training all of their staff to use the new software - and that takes considerable time, and management.
I'm so concerned about this, that I think policies should be put in place to govern the re-use of hardware, and avoid the constant re-tendering for software at every change of government or re-structuring phase. One of the best ways to avoid the repetitive purchasing of over priced software is to set up collaborative projects, that allow government bodies to work together to build software suitable for several bodies performing similar tasks.That way, health care bodies in separate parts of the country can use Open Source software, building and adapting it, in the process. Of course, all bodies involved would need to contribute in some way, but the costs could be dramatically reduced, if the development were managed well.
To this end, we, at Redbrook Technology, intend to start a project for the management of health care bodies, and make it open source, and freely available for health care organisations world wide. We will spend time instigating, and developing the main base of code, and other resources for this project, and allow health care bodies from around the world to use this software freely, and contribute to it, for the greater good. I will be writing more about this exciting new project soon, and we will be busy deciding on the scope, and features requirements. We will be meeting with government bodies to determine their needs, and discuss the collaborative elements. Of course, we need to take into account that there are a wide range of legislative factors across the country, and foreign collaborators will also need to be catered for.
If you have an interest in this project, please contact us at - info@redbrooktech.com
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