National Health System (NHS)

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Defining An Open Platform for Health IT

It is widely agreed that the future of digital health lies in an “Open Platform”. However, it’s not clear as to exactly what an Open Platform is or how we get there. This blog aims to answer the first question and to provide some guidance on the second. While any given instance of an Open Platform will be a specific implementation of a set of software components owned and operated by a particular organisation (this might be a health and social care organisation or a third party, operating the platform on behalf of a local health and care community), it is most usefully defined by a set of principles rather than the specific details of a particular implementation.

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EHI Live UK Conference Hosts State–of-the-Art Open Source Health IT Solutions

Press Release | EHI Live | October 20, 2015

EHI live, now in its 8th year, is the UK's leading exhibition for digital health, hospital information and healthcare innovation. The event attracts visitors and delegates from around the UK and beyond who are keen to learn from industry leaders and examine new technologies. The EHI Live exhibition gives visitors the chance to see the best that NHS IT suppliers have to offer. EHI Live will take place in Birmingham, UK, Nov 3-4, in Hall 1 at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham. The event will host more than 250 exhibitors showcasing the latest advances in IT healthcare solutions. It will also feature free-to-attend conferences that will address the major healthcare IT industry issues such...[including] the annual HANDI Health Apps conference which features its own specialist app zone, a feature dedicated to the use of open source technology.

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Humetrix Demos SOS QR Emergency & Disaster Preparedness Mobile Platform at FCC Accessibility Innovations Expo

Press Release | Humetrix | October 20, 2017

Humetrix, developer of the award-winning SOS QR emergency mobile platform, last year’s recipient of the FCC Chairman’s Awards for Advancements in Accessibility (AAA), is honored to participate in this year’s FCC Accessibility Innovation Expo taking place on October 23 in Washington, DC. The Humetrix SOS QR technology has won multiple innovation awards since its first launch in 2014 being recognized by the White House as an innovative technology for disaster preparedness, winning the NHS TestBed competition last year, and the 2016 FCC Chairman’s Award for Advancement in Accessibility.

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IMS MAXIMS releases improved version of open source EPR (EHR)

Press Release | IMS MAXIMS | January 22, 2016

This week sees the release of the latest version of the IMS MAXIMS open source electronic patient record (EPR), openMAXIMS, which includes all of the enhancements made for Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust. Taunton was the first trust to go live with the software and has been working closely with IMS MAXIMS on the new functionality. The upgraded code is now available on the open source website (GitHub), with many new features, including clinical triage of referrals to direct patients to the appropriate service and care according to clinical priority, and pre-operative assessment for theatres, ensuring patients are fit and suitable for surgery.

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Major German research project chooses openEHR

I just returned from Heidelberg, where another very successful ‘openEHR day’ was held, this time by the HiGHmed research consortium, with 100 attendees. HiGHmed is funded with 20m€ by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under the “Medical Informatics” funding scheme, and has as its goal..... to develop and use innovative information infrastructures to increase the efficiency of clinical research and to swiftly translate research results into validated improvements of patient care...

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NantHealth Acquires Harris Healthcare Solutions

Press Release | NantHealth | July 16, 2015

NantHealth, a subsidiary of NantWorks, LLC, today announced it has completed the acquisition of Harris Corporation’s (NYSE:HRS) commercial Healthcare Solutions business, a clinical systems integration innovator. Harris retained its government healthcare services business. NantHealth’s existing cOS, eviti and omics platforms, combined with Harris’ FusionFX® suite of products, delivers on the promise of whole health systems integration and revolutionizes the patient-clinician experience by bringing molecular medicine insights directly to the point-of-care.

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NHS England to fund NHS VistA projects

John Hoeksma | eHealth Insider (EHI) | July 1, 2013

NHS England will spend some of the £260m Technology Fund on further exploring the creation of an NHS version of the US Veterans Health Association’s open source electronic medical record, VistA.  eHI revealed last week that senior figures from NHS England have visited the US to see VistA in action. Read More »

NHS Eyes Open Source Alternatives

Jon Hoeksma | ehealth insider (ehi) | June 27, 2013

...The idea of Anglicising VistA is said to be strongly advocated by some within the leadership of NHS England, including chief data officer Dr Geraint Lewis, who first championed the concept while at the Nuffield Trust think-tank. EHI understands that NHS England is drawing up plans to commit millions, possibly tens of millions, of pounds from the £260m technology fund to funding open source software, potentially including an NHS version of VistA... Read More »

NHS Open Source Movement Gathers Pace As Trusts Set Up CIC [UK]

Edward Qualtrough | CIO UK | February 9, 2015

An NHS open source community interest company (CIC) has been set up to guide the development of an electronic patient record system, which NHS England hopes will ignite the open source digital health and care services markets to better serve clinicians and patients. Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust formally signed an agreement in December 2014 to become the initial members of the new organisation acting as custodians for source code of the openMAXIMS EPR suite, which was released as open source in June 2014. Last week the CIC received approved establishment from Companies House.

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ONC's 3rd Interoperability Forum: Not Much to Report

On August 21 and 22, 2019 the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) held its third Interoperability Forum in Washington, DC. More than 600 individuals participated in person with many others viewing the general sessions via webinar. The conference began and ended with half-day plenary sessions while providing five tracks with smaller sessions in between. I attended the Health Information Exchange (HIE)/Community-based Information Exchange (CIE) breakout session on both days. The plenaries...focused on the current state and the future state of interoperability.

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Open Source Can Bring UK's NHS IT Back To The Future

Malcolm Senior | Government Computing | March 20, 2015

One year on from announcing that Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust had signed a contract with an option to implement the UK's first open source electronic patient record (EPR), Malcolm Senior, the trust's director of informatics, discusses the prospects of open source in the NHS Read More »

Open Source NHS Spine Communications Hub Saves UK NHS £20m in First Year

Lis Evenstad | ComputerWeekly.com | September 3, 2015

The NHS Spine – the health service's communications hub that connects key IT services – has saved more than £20m in its first year, according to the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC). One year after the upgrade of the infrastructure behind the NHS Spine platform, the running costs of the system – which is used in all NHS organisations and handles up to 1,800 electronic transactions per second – have been cut by £21m compared to the previous version.

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Open Source Software Foundation Implements suiteCRM to Support Code4Health

Press Release | Open Source Software Foundation | October 15, 2015

NHS finances are under intense pressure and demand for services is rising. Something has to give and business as usual is not an option. NHS England recognised this when it supported the establishment of Code4Health, an initiative that stimulates and supports IT innovation in healthcare. One of outcomes of the initiative was to establish an open source (OS) practice, reaching out to an increasing number of open source projects, providing software suitable for use across UK health and care. Read More »

Open Source To Be Big Tech Fund 2 Winner (UK)

Jon Hoeksma | eHealth Insider | January 25, 2015

Open source projects will likely be the stand-out winners of NHS England’s tech fund 2 awards, EHI News has learned. Projects based on use of open source clinical software are expected to be largely spared the axe that has been wielded on other projects, after an estimated £90 million was slashed from the £240 million Integrated Digital Care Technology Fund according to EHI News sources.

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openMAXIMS CIC Founded as NHS Open Source Movement Gathers Pace

Press Release | IMS MAXIMS | February 5, 2015

The NHS’ open source movement has reached a major milestone with the official launch of the openMAXIMS community interest company (CIC). This will guide the development of an open source electronic patient record system for the NHS. Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust formally signed an agreement on 18th December 2014 to become the initial members of the new organisation and have today received approved establishment from Companies House.

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