Open Health Tools, to Collaborate on Global Health IT Solutions

Open Health Tools | 12 Apr 2008

*Common Health Interoperability Framework for improvements in patient quality of care, safety and access to health records
*Collaboration between national healthcare and standards organizations, academia, vendors and open source community
*First contribution of open source software from UK National Health Services
*Based upon neutral, international standards and open source development models
*Governance and business model similar to Eclipse Foundation software platform along with a set of exemplary tools and reference implementations

Open Health Tools (OHT) today announced a collaborative effort between national health agencies, government-funded organizations and agencies, major healthcare providers, international standards organizations and companies from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States to develop common healthcare IT products and services. 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).

OHT, with unprecedented resources, existing technology and expertise, provides a global community that will focus on the requirements, design and development of these enabling tools and components. The results will be available under an open source agreement so anyone may utilize them to provision interoperable healthcare platforms that will link clinics, hospitals, pharmacies and other points of care to make the healthcare system more efficient. OHT’s health interoperability framework will utilize standardized, open interfaces and a set of reusable software components that can be assembled into systems and products by health systems and vendors.

Skip McGaughey, executive director of OHT, noted, “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 $77.8 billion in the United States alone from the introduction of healthcare information exchange and interoperability.1

OHT is open to membership from any organization, subject to board approval. OHT’s governance, legal and intellectual property policies, development processes, and marketing and business practices are based on the Eclipse Foundation model. The results of member efforts are being made available under a commercially-friendly open source license. It is the objective of OHT that any individual, organization or hospital can build applications using the Foundation’s framework whether or not the entity is a member—free of charge.

OHT Inaugural Members
OHT is a collaborative organization comprised of the following standards organizations, academia, national health systems, the open source community, vendors and IT professionals:

Government agencies in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia striving to provide healthcare professionals with rapid access to accurate and complete patient information, enabling better decisions about treatment and diagnosis:
* Canada Health Infoway, Inc.
*National e-Health Transition Authority (Australia)
*National Health Service, Connecting for Health (United Kingdom)
*Veterans Health Administration (United States)

Health standards agencies providing open, neutral, international standards for the effort:
*Health Level 7
*Healthcare Services Specification Project
*International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation
*Object Management Group

Academia and research:
*Linkoping University
*Oregon State University, Open Source Lab
*Mohawk College

Vendors and open source organizations providing compelling medical software, services and equipment solutions:
B2 International BT CollabNet
Eclipse IBM Innoopract
Inpriva JP Systems Kestral
NexJ Systems Ocean Informatics Oracle
Ozmosis Palamida Red Hat

About Open Health Tools
Open Health Tools is an open source community with a vision of enabling a ubiquitous ecosystem where members of the Health and IT professions can collaborate to build interoperable systems that enable patients and their professional healthcare providers to have access to vital and reliable medical information at the time and place it is needed.

Open Health Tools is a trademark of Open Health Tools Inc. All other trademarks used in this document are the property of their respective owners.

[1] Jan Walker, Eric Pan, Douglas Johnston, Julia Adler-Milstein, David W. Bates and Blackford Middleton, The Value of Healthcare Information Exchange and Interoperability Health Affairs, 19 January 2005, (http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.w5.10/DC1)

The URL for this announcement is located at: www.openhealthtools.org/news.htm

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