Extremadura Health Care Has Switched To Open Source [Spain]

Gijs Hillenius | JoinUp | June 10, 2014

The desktop computer systems of government healthcare organisations in the Spanish region of Extremadura all rely on free and open source software solutions. Over the past year, close to 10,000 computer workstations in public health care organisations have migrated to a customised version of the Debian GNU/Linux distribution.

The regional administration is also moving ahead with the migration of workstations used by other public administrations in the region, "although at a slower pace than initially planned", the IT department told the Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR). "The priorities have shifted from focussing on the number of migrated desktops to an improved quality of service for our users."
Healthcare workstations have already been using open source for years. However, last year they've been updated to a customised version of the Debian free software distribution, named Lingobex Salud.

In the region of Extremadura, GNU/Linux is the default choice for server hosts. Free and open source is also the preferred solution for use in schools in the region. Some 60,000 workstations and 33,000 laptops in the region's primary and secondary education use open source...