ISfTeH Open Source Working Group News
Round up Session at the Medetel on 20
April 2012
Etienne Saliez and Thomas Karopka.
- Introduction on Open Source:
- Summary of Definitions:
- To share knowhow in the public domain:
- In the context of informatics this means to share the full
documentation including the source code.
- Comparisons with other domains as scientific research,
generic drugs, etc...
- Remark:
- Full name in English is FLOSS "Free Libre Open Source
Software".
- Freedoms:
- Freedom to use:
- = Limitation of the global costs.
- Freedom to analyze the content:
- = Possibility of quality control and to verify that the
software is doing what it is intended to do and nothing else.
- = Avoid dependency on a single provider.
- Freedom to install any number of copies:
- = Limitations of cost in a large number of new
installations, having similar needs.
- Freedom to make adaptations and extensions:
- = Allow collaborative developments.
- = An important factor of innovations and convergence of
standards.
- Services:
- Discussion about the economic model. Services may be
charged at usual business rate, for example
services for installation, maintnance and even sponsored development
work, on
condition that the results are made available in the public domain.
- Why an Open Source Working group
in the ISfTeH ?
- Remember the ISfTeH Mission Statement:
- " Facilitate the international dissemination of knowledge and
experience in Telemedicine and eHealth and providing access to
recognized experts in the field worldwide " and " Supporting developing
countries in the field of Telemedicine and e-Health ". http://www.isfteh.org/about .
ISfTeH has indeed members
in about 50 countries, many of them being
developing countries.
- Open Source is obviously a good way to contribute to theses
goals.
- There are today far too many incompatibles medical softwares.
- The essential Healthcare Requirements are globally similar
everywhere in the world.
- Healthcare is seen here as a social responsibility and most
healthcare organizations have a not for profit status.
- Telemedicine can help isolated health centers in developing
regions.
- ISfTeH Working Group
Activities:
- http://www.isfteh.org/working_groups/category/collaborative_care_team_in_open_source
,
- Maintenance of an Inventory of Open Source medical softwares:
- Participation in IMIA and EFMI
LIFLOSS working groups.
- Sharing know-how:
- Typically a yearly Open Source session in the MEDETEL. and
the next one on 10-12 april 2013.
- Support of projects of members of the WG:
- Support of projects joining the Working Group. as for
example IPATH, GNU
Solidario, .... and CCTOS.
- Looking ahead ?
- Reflexion on the next steps for the coming years, issues to
be discussed.
- Issues to be further discussed:
- Introduction:
- Medical Collaboration Issues ?
- Focus on Multidisciplinary Collaborations ? nurse
in a health post --- GP --- regional hospital --- university ---
international experts ?
- Patient centric approach ? With coordination
starting at Primary Care Level ?
- How to manage patient's problems ? PORMR, Problem
Oriented Medical Record approach ?
- Iterative care process, graphical presentations of the
relations between: (iterative-care-model-schema.html,
Iterations)
- Observed facts ?
- Identification of Issues in function of these facts
?
Need of a thesaurus of usual "Health Issues" ? a broader concept
than diagnoses ?
- Activities in function of these issues ? Both
seeking
more information and prescribing treatments
- Having such a common patient platform, how to add extensions
in function of
specialized situations ? by means of interfaces to external
modules. For example to pathology, cardiology, pneumology,
opthalmology, labs,
radiology, etc... ?
- How to provide contextual training ? Navigation to
knowledge ?
- How to extract information useful for for epidemiology ?
- Technical Collaboration Issues ?
- Open Source Communities in MEDFLOSS ? How to support
integration ?
- Where to start ? from the most essential concepts
of the care process. http://www.chos-wg.eu/Software/Modules-Overview.html
?
- Hos to add extensions in function of specialized situations
? Very modular architecture allowing to integrate medical
software components available in Open Source, and in any usual
programming language ?
- How to take advantage of up to date technologies ?
- Objects having views functions, rather than web pages
containing some logic ?
- Object Oriented Data Bases ?
- Versioned archives ?
- Dealing with unreliable tele communications ? Non
blocking procedures ? Event driven ?
- Avoid unnecessary centralizations ? Distributed
network
?
- Installation in remote areas ? Software on USB key ?
- Multiplatform compatibility ?
- .......
- ...
- Experimental prototypes ?
- Objectives:
- To facilitate discussions, i.e. in front of visual examples
on
Internet.
- To evaluate the feasibility of up to date technologies.
- Repository: a begin is at https://bitbucket.org/saliez/cctos
and is intended for distributed developments, using the distributed
Version Control System "Mercurial",
allowing everybody to propose improvements and extensions of the
prototypes.
- How to find more support ? Who is willing to participate
in which activities ? ....
- Medical support about the specifications ?
- Technical support for prototypes and interfaces ?
- Sponsors ?