Open Source EHRs and Open Standards in Healthcare
A couple of months ago, we held a Digital Health Oxford event on Open Source Electronic Health Records systems and Open Standards in Healthcare at the Oxford Martin School at Oxford University. We had four great speakers who shared their knowledge and experience about Open Source EHR systems and the use of Open Standards in healthcare. We recorded the talks and they are now available to view (see embedded videos below) so I thought I would highlight them in a blog post.
It was a real pleasure to host this event as I have been investigating the use of Open Source EHR systems in Kenya for the past few years and it was interesting to compare to how Open Source appears to be taking off in high-income countries like the UK. Mike Denis kicked off proceedings with a great overview of the work the Oxford AHSN is doing in Oxfordshire and was followed up by Shane Tickell from IMS MAXIMS. IMS MAXIMS is a particularly interesting case as they are very much a commercial EHR vendor who have recently adopted an open source approach - unlike the grant-funded Open Source systems that our research team has encountered in Kenya. Tim Benson's talk on interoperability showed that progress is being made on the age old problem of getting systems to talk to each other. The new FHIR standard seems like a great approach and seems to have taken off quite dramatically over the last couple of years. Finally, it was very good to hear about innovative companies such as Open Healthcare UK that have built a business on developing and supporting Open Source software in the NHS. With the number of Open Source EHRs in use in Africa, there is a real need for local businesses to support and continue to develop implementations.
Enjoy the videos and if you would like to add to the discussion on Open Source software in healthcare, please feel free to post a comment.
Shane Tickell from IMS MAXIMS:
https://vimeo.com/187080187
Tim Benson (Author of Principles of Health Interoperability)
https://vimeo.com/186247754
David Miller from Open Healthcare UK and NHS Hack Day
https://vimeo.com/186247600