I have used Idealist, initially version 2 and later version 3 for years.
It is a fully indexed free text database, IE every word in it is indexed and all records containing a word can be presented within a second.
It is particularly suitable for the unstructured general information that we build up in the general medical practice and can be used from any PC on a network.
Idealist was produced by Blackwell Scientific Software, for whom I did a little consulting on the medical uses, and later taken over by Bekon who continue to maintain it and are producing version 6 which is intended to include an HTML or Web server, thus neatly bridging the gap to the organisation's Intranet.
In the meantine, with a little effort one can interface Idealist version 3 to a web-server, and indeed to word-processors and other standard office programs.
For some years I used Idealist intensively to store out of hours medical records, producing the notes as neatly printed adhesive labels to add to the patients' existing paper records. A modern version would presumably pass the note through PGP and email it.
I would be delighted to consult on making use of Idealist in similar contexts, and have several contacts who would also be available. idealist is first class British software and has not yet had its functionality duplicated either for Linux or in Open Source. It will run under WINE on Linux. The current best WINE, Codeweavers WINE, needs a bit of fiddling with to get it running, I havn't got that going yet, but previous versions of WINE worked OK and are still available.
Idealist accepts commands by DDE. It is possible to drive it from a Python script, and this can be added to a multi-search script such that a single question is presented to the internal records of an organisation, and to such external facilities as they choose, and the results all presented in the web browser.
Mifluz is the free-text indexing engine for the Ht:/Dig internet search engine. It may become a substitute for Idealist Senga develop it as GNU sotware