Collaborative Care Team in Open Source

  • Etienne Saliez - .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
  • Thomas Karopka - .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
  • Monika Hubler - .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

  • Members and Contacts

    • List of Members and interested contacts
    • New partners are invited to join: Rather than developing applications in isolation, consider to participate in a community sharing experience and Open Source modules.

Mission Statement

  • Medical collaborations:

    • Why telemedicine matter in healthcare.
    • A problem solving approach: maintenance of an up to date overview of the patient "Problem List", with links to the secondary details explaining why a problem has been identified and which actions haven been started.
    • An iterative care process from "What is known up to now" and "What to do next".
    • A "patient centric" record shared by the members of his/her multidisciplinary "Care Team".
    • Education by means of contextual training: on the occasion of the encountered problems provide explanations and references to more fundamental knowledge.
    • Role Based Access Control based on the care team, known and accepted by the patient.
    • The possibility to extract anonymous data for statistical studies.

  • Informatics collaborations:

    • Sharing technical know-how about softwares and telecommunications, including all source code and documentation, i.e. an "Open Source" approach.
    • A very modular approach allowing to reuse selected software components, step by step.
    • Initial focus on the most common requirements in most care situations, to be incremented step by step to more specific features in function of particular diseases and medical specialties.
    • Distributed developments across an international community.
    • Coordination of professional support services at regional level.

What to do

How to achieve it

  • Open Source strategies

    • Shared Open Source software components:
      • Review of available Open Source softwares
      • Identification of components which can be reused and integrated:
        • Common software:
        • Additional in function of the context
      • Distributed shared efforts are far less expensive. Nevertheless some resources are necessary for coordination and maintenance.
    • Support Services:
      • Professional support services are critical for the exploitation.
      • Support services are traditional business competing on quality and prices.

Current projects

  • Operational IPATH network

    • Telemedicine platform providing healthcare support and education in several specialized areas and operational in developing countries since 2002. As a summary isolated health centers send pathology images and get second opinion from pathology experts across the Internet, a free of charge service. see the presentation slides.
    • Call for part time contributors either as a medical experts in pathology, or as an informaticians willing to maintain the software, or as secretarial coordination.
    • Contact: Monika Hubler.
    • Main Ipath server in Basel

  • PBTL, Problem Based Tele-Learning in Open Source:

    • Tele-training for junior doctors, medical students, nurses, etc... under supervision of a coach. Making health education available and affordable in remote regions.
    • Rigorous work methodology: " Given all what is known up to now, what to do next ? "
    • Support of remote health centers where there are no specialists, or even no doctors on site. Local data preparation before a case can be submitted to a remote expert, in an effective way.
    • Applied research about how to help patients working as a collaborative team across internet.

Events

  • Med-e-Tel, ISfTeH's annual conference on 5-7 April 2017 in Luxembourg

    • Open Source Village:
      • Join the "Open Source village", a booth in the hall and networking area, during the 3 days. Demonstrations of telemedicine systems and informal discussions with visitors.
      • Bring posters and demo about your Open Source projects. Contact the Working Group coordinators for participation in this Open Source Village.
    • Open Source Conference Session:
      • Call for papers presenting medical softwares in Open Source, particularly softwares which can be shared with others. As well what you would like to receive from others.

  • Professional Open Source Support in Healthcare

    • In collaboration with the UK Open Source Software Industry Association and intended to be organized in London in 2017.
    • A list of topics is in preparation. Open Source issues will be discussed, one at a time. The topics will include issues like medical model, shared developments, maintenance, support services, sustainable development, resources. Let us know what you see as the most critical questions to be discussed and solutions to be recommended.

Call for participation in the Open Source Working Group

  • Stay informed and participate in discussions. Your questions and suggestions are very welcome, particularly about your requirements and dreams which could potentially be shared with other users.
  • Send a summary of your coordinates, your topics of interest and how you would like to contribute to the activities of the Open Source Working group.
  • Free access to discussions but invitation to membership of this Open Source Working Group.
  • Donations to the ISfTeH Open Source Working Group are very welcome.
  • Contact: Etienne Saliez and Thomas Karopka.

(Version 23 Sept 2016)

Working groups