Open source projects created for use in health care and medical applications promise to significantly reduce costs and contribute efficiencies to health care organizations, according to Black Duck Software, the leading global provider of products and services for accelerating software development through the managed use of open source software.
Using a well-known cost estimation model (COCOMO) to determine the cost to produce software, Black Duck estimates that the nearly 800 health care open source software projects it identified represent $6 billion USD of software development costs, and would require 31,000 staff years of development to replicate. These projects represent a significant potential stimulus resource available to the healthcare industry.
Projects dealing with electronic health records management, practice management and VistA, the health care information management system developed by the US Veterans Administration, lead in project community activity. Projects such as PatientOS, a patient management system; OpenEMR; an electronic medical record application, and OpenVista, an open-source version of VistA, are among the most active health care projects in the open source community as tracked by the Black Duck KnowledgeBase.
A report by life science market research publisher Kalorama Information, which valued the market for electronic medial record systems at $575 million in 2008, forecasts growth in the sector will reach $1.6 billion in 2013. According to Bruce Carlson, publisher of Kalorama Information, “EMRs give patients and physicians greater freedom, improve accuracy, and should result in better outcomes as critical records are all in one easily transportable record.”
“The Obama administration, in its proposed reform of the health care system, has earmarked billions of dollars of stimulus money to foster the adoption of electronic medical records in Medicare and Medicaid alone(1),” said Eran Strod, director of product marketing, Black Duck Software. “Using open source software to meet this challenge — and break the ‘status quo’ the president identified in his radio address on health care — represents a significant opportunity to quickly implement electronic medical records systems at a drastically reduced cost to the country.”
The top ten community-based open source health care projects dealing with electronic medical records and practice management each ranked in the top five percent on SourceForge, with hundreds to thousands of downloads per month. The projects are listed in the table below.
- CARE2X Integrated Hospital Information System for surgery, nursing, outpatient wards, labs, pharmacy, security, admission, schedulers, repair, communication & more.
- dcm4che Leading Java implementation of DICOM [medical.nema.org]. DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) is a standard for handling, storing, printing, and transmitting information in medical imaging, founded by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA). There are 69 additional open source projects in the DICOM ecosystem including pydicom, dicom-archive, EchoScu-DICOM, and many more.
- Elexis Praxisprogramm An Eclipse RCP (Rich Client Platform) for all aspects of a medical practice: electronic/medical record (EMR), laboratory findings, as well as accounting, billing and other daily work. Supports the TARMED-System.
- FreeMED Electronic Medical Record and Practice Management system for medical providers.
- medical Scalable EMR (Electronic Medical Record) module for OpenERP, aiming to provide a 100% paperless practice for a single office or a hospital. Uses industry standards, such WHO ICD-10.
- OpenEMed Distributed healthcare and medical information framework based on open standards including those of HL7 and the healthcare taskforce of the OMG (Object Management Group). These standards include identity management, observation access, access, and terminology.
- OpenEMR Open Source Electronic Medical Record, Practice Management, Prescription Writing and Medical Billing application. OpenEMR supports ANSI X12 EDI billing and two clearing houses: ProxyMed and ZirMed.
- PatientOS Electronic medical record (EHR or EMR and PMS) for a physician or clinics. Designed to be expanded into a Healthcare Information System for a hospital (Laboratory, Pharmacy, Orders, etc…).
- Tkfp TK Family Practice – Small office EMR for family physicians, pediatricians, internists or primary care, handling key functions including: registering the patient, reading and writing progress notes, checking medications, writing and transmitting prescriptions looking up information on medical questions, making referrals, and finally generating the bill and/or insurance claim, ready for transmission or printing. Used in a four-doctor group for five years. Handles HCFA1500 claim form.
- Ultimate EMR Open Source Core Electronic Medical Record for small medical providers with key functionalities: complete patient history, past visits, Rx, health maintenance, allergies, labs, vitals, notes, and procedures.
- VistA Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture – Enterprise grade health care information system and Electronic Health Record developed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and deployed at nearly 1,500 facilities worldwide. Major open source projects including: WorldVistA, WordVistA EHR, OpenVista and VistA-Office HER.
