Thursday, September 9, 2010
IMIA Working Groups
Last updated: 07/24/2009
Open Source Health Informatics
Founded: 2002
Membership: 13
http://www.chirad.info/imiaoswg/
Chair   Term of Office: 2008-2011
Wright, Prof. Graham , MBA, MPhil, MBCS, DN, Cert Ed, RMN,SRN, RNT, RCNT
MSc Health Informatics Program Director
Centre for Health Informatics, Research and Development
Firstdown Salisbury England SP5 1SJ
+44 1980 863953
Vice-Chair   Term of Office: 2009-2012
Karopka, Mr. Thomas
IT Science Center Rügen gGmbH
Putbus D-18581 Germany
+49(0)38301 8829-74
+49(0)38301 8829-59
Goals & Objectives

Objectives:
The objectives of the group as developed at its formation in 2002 remain relevant, and the focus of the group remains on educational, promotional and 'evangelistic' activities to raise awareness of open source software. While the group is named 'open source', our areas of interest include free/libre software and open source software (as described at in the European Commission-funded FLOSS project - see http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS/index.htm), and including GNU/Linux.

The objectives of the group are:
- to provide a forum for discussion and for a collaborative, non-judgemental work environment to explore, and where appropriate promote and facilitate, the application of free/libre and open source solutions within health, healthcare and health informatics.
- to bring together experts and interested individuals from a wide range of health professions and with a range of interests in the potential application of free/libre and open source solutions within their domains of expertise.
- to explore the implications of the free/libre and open source approaches for all aspects of IMIA's areas of interest.
- to work with other IMIA Working and Special Interest Groups to explore the appropriate use of free/libre and open source solutions and applications.
- to facilitate both the use of other groups' expertise in the areas under consideration, and the input of IMIA views to those other groups' work and discussions.

Recent Activities:
It should be noted that, due to considerable joint membership, many of the activities of the Working Group have been, are likely in the near future to continue to be, coterminous with those of the IMIA-NI Open Source Nursing Informatics Working Group. In the longer-term, specific activities of the two groups may diverge, although they are likely to undertake much joint work, and much work in collaboration with the EFMI Open Source Working Group.
- A paper on the 2004 Open Steps project meetings, including results of the final meeting held at medinfo2004, was given at HC2005 in Harrogate, UK, in March 2005 (see http://www.peter-murray.net/chiradinfo/marwell04/marwellreportv01.htm ) for the project report. (Murray, PJ & Wright G (2005) The Open Steps Project: the UK and international priorities for free/libre and open source software (FLOSS) in the health informatics domain. In Current Perspectives in Healthcare Computing 2005.)
- A book chapter on free/libre and open source software, and highlighting the IMIA OSWG and IMIA-NI OSNI WG, has been authored by two group members (Peter Murray and Alric M OConnor) and will be in the new edition of Saba and McCormick's Essentials of Computers for Nurses.
- Peter Murray and Karl Øyri attended the V International Congress of Informatics in Health (at Informatica2005) in Havana, Cuba in May 2005. In addition, we participated in the II Intercambio Informatica en Enfermeria (Second Interchange on Nursing Informatics) held at CECAM (Centro de Cibernetica Aplicada a la Medicina) in Havana. We had informal discussions about software libre (as it is called in Cuba). Peter gave a keynote presentation as part of the health informatics event, titled 'osni.info - using open source tools to build an international community of nurse informaticians', which also provided information on the IMIA OSWG.
- Peter Murray gave a keynote presentation (Bringing together clinicians, academic and developers for free/libre and open source software (FLOSS) in the health domain: current states and future possibilities) at the Libre Software Meeting (Medicine track), July 5-9, 2005, at Dijon, France.
- At the SINI2005 event (Summer Institute in Nursing Informatics of the University of Maryland School of Nursing, July 20-23) in Baltimore, USA, Peter Murray, Alric O'Connor and Karl Øyri presented a panel session on 'Open source and free software: what every nurse informatician needs to know'. This was supported by the IMIA OSWG and IMIA-NI OSNI WG. We also held a very successful open meeting for OSNI members and other interested people.
- MIE 2005 a workshop 'Exploring a European dimension to free/libre and open source software (FLOSS) in health and nursing informatics';
- A number of publications from the group:-
- Murray PJ. (2006) Free and open source software in healthcare: an overview of current applications and organisations. Journal of Korean Society of Medical Informatics.
- Murray PJ & O'Connor AM (2006) Open Source and Free Software. In Saba V & McCormick, K, Essentials of Nursing Informatics, 4th Edition, New York: McGraw-Hill Medical

Future Activities
- The group are collaborating with the EFMI WG and CHIRAD to co-ordinate the special topic conference on open source in London in 2008. Planning is starting with the identification of the issues and the themes for the conference.
- We have a Business meeting booked at Medinfo 2007 in Brisbane
- We have an Open Source Workshop booked on 19 & 20 August at Medinfo 2007.
- The workshop originally planned with BCS HIF in April 2007 in London at the BCS Headquarters in the Strand has been postponed until after Medinfo
- The WG may be helping with an R&D project for Open EHR in South Africa
- The group have been approached to run workshops in South Africa and Argentina
- The Chair presented at the EMFI Special Topic Conference in Croatia
- The co-chair has promised to organise a meeting in Prague in 2007; the Chair has requested and up date but at the time of writing this is not forthcoming.


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