News
CfH in international collaboration on open source health IT
solutions
16 April 2008
The open source developer community, Open Health Tools (OHT), has
announced a collaborative effort to develop common healthcare IT
products and services. Its 26 members consist of national health
agencies, government-funded organisations and agencies, major healthcare
providers, international standards organisations and companies from
Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The members include NHS Connecting for Health (CfH), BT, IBM, Oracle and
HL7, among others. Formed in November 2007, OHT's mission is to provide
software tools and components that will accelerate the implementation of
electronic health information interoperability platforms, which improve
patient quality of care, safety and access to electronic health records
(EHR).
The results will be available under an open source agreement so
anyone may use them to provide interoperable healthcare platforms that
will link clinics, hospitals, pharmacies and other points of care to
make healthcare systems more efficient.
OHT's health interoperability framework will use standardised, open
interfaces and a set of reusable software components that can be
assembled into systems and products by health systems and vendors.
OHT is open to membership from any organisation and the results of
member efforts are made available under a commercially friendly open
source license. OHT’s governance, legal and intellectual property
policies, development processes, and marketing and business practices
are based on the Eclipse Foundation model. Any individual, organisation
or hospital can build applications using the Foundation’s framework
whether or not the entity is a member — free of charge.
Skip McGaughey, executive director of OHT, said, “Advancements in
medical procedures and patient care have changed the way the world views
health and wellness. However, modern healthcare information technology
has not kept pace with the complexity of today’s healthcare systems.
There is a critical need for interoperability between healthcare systems
and the consistent and seamless exchange of accurate
data.”
Research points to a potential annual savings of US$77.8 billion in
the United States alone from the introduction of healthcare information
exchange and interoperability.
As part of its commitment to OHT, NHS Connecting for Health has
contributed an XML processing engine and associated personnel and is
leading the Health Level Seven (HL7) tools development project.
Ken Lunn, director of NHS Data Standards and Products, part of the
NHS Connecting for Health Technology Office and a board member of OHT
said, "Interoperability is a core aspect of the National Programme for
IT and one of the enablers for safe and secure access to patient
information whenever and wherever it is needed. The quality of patient
care is dependent on the quality of the information that authorised
healthcare professionals can access.”
Nick Booth, director of Health Informatics, BT Health, said: “BT is
pleased to announce its membership in the Open Health Tools Foundation.
Through involvement with NHS projects and its health IT integration
experience, BT understands the value of open, interoperable health
information standards. The challenges that exist in implementing such
standards require new approaches.
"We believe that a convergent approach to the implementation of
standards will bring several key benefits. It will directly improve
patient care by delivering consistent patient information at the point
of need; it will benefit the providers of patient care by maximizing the
application of medical resources; it will benefit the health of the
nation through a better understanding of the population's health needs;
and it will benefit medicine itself through support of knowledge and
evidence-based medicine.
"BT believes that open source software collaboration is the most
cost-effective way of demonstrating and achieving convergence. We at BT
look forward to an ongoing involvement with Open Health Tools.”
For further information see:
www.openhealthtools.org
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