A Study of the GNU General Public Licence-based Patients Information Management System to Manage Healthcare Systems

: The GNU General Public Licence (GNU or GPL or simply GPL) is a set of widely used free software licences free to run, share, modify and update per users’ requirements. Patients Information Management System is an efficient digital health records system that facilitates tracking patient information such as diagnosis, drug usage, prescription, health history, etc. This study explores and reviews the list of GNU GPL software in the healthcare domain and their comparative analysis. To find out the best FOSS software NGOs and Charitable Hospitals can use to manage their hospital management systems. The authors adopted scientific methods to select the software and visited each website to find the software documentation to collect detailed information; also, some data was collected from the website home pages. All the collected data have been entered into MS Excel; for review and comparison. This study found that OPenEMR is the best software, followed by GNUmed, OneTouchEMR and Nosh. Most of the software programs are written in Python, Javascript, PHP and Cross-platform supported, and most of the software has been released only in the last decade. All the software has the facility of Mediclaim Management interface. Also, the authors have figured out many facilities integrated with the software like inhouse pharmacy and dispensary support, HIPAA friendly, Encryption, 5010 standards, inventory management etc. This study impacts medical informatics and the healthcare sector in selecting appropriate FOSS software.