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, 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."
For further information see: www.openhealthtools.org
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