OSEHRA 2012: Announces First Annual Open Source EHR Summit and Workshop

Conference accepting abstracts to discuss future of electronic health record development

Arlington, VA (PRWEB) August 07, 2012--The Open Source Electronic Health Records Agent (OSEHRA), a nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating innovation in electronic health record software, today announced that registration is now open for the First Annual Open Source EHR Summit & Workshop. The Summit is the first-ever conference for the organization whose aim is to support the use of the worldwide open source community to advance the development of electronic health record (EHR) technology. The Summit will be held October 17 and 18, 2012, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, MD. A discount of $100 is available for conference attendees who register on or before August 17, 2012.

The Summit will feature more than 30 eminent panelists and speakers, including government officials, health care leaders, clinical care providers and policymakers. The event will bring together the OSEHRA community, now totaling more than 1,000 members, for the first time and provide a venue for Open Source Health IT training and educational workshops.

“The first OSEHRA Open Source EHR Summit will celebrate and share the work of the OSEHRA community and continue to chart a bold new course for the most innovative EHR platforms that will embody the passion and inventive power of open source developers, clinicians and policy makers,” said Seong Ki Mun, PhD, President and CEO of OSEHRA.

Conference topics will include:

• Open source initiatives in Federal agencies; VA, DoD, HHS and others
• Best practices in open source software development 
• Lessons learned from related industries
• Open source software development in health care
• Trends in the open source software industry
• New open source initiatives

It is projected that within the next few years, more than 200 hospitals and 1000 clinics, within the federal sector alone, will be managing and maintaining their EHRs using open source software. Open source electronic health records are also being used in numerous domestic community health care facilities and more than 13 foreign countries. An increasing number of state agencies and private sector health care communities facing the unsustainable high costs of health IT have started calling for alternate approaches to maintain and manage traditional proprietary electronic health records. These open source activities create a huge market opportunity for both private and public sectors.

The Summit is now accepting abstracts for presentations addressing technical, business and policy issues associated with open source software and EHR. Abstracts are limited to 100 words or less and submission requirements are detailed at the conference registration site’s “Call for Papers” tab. The deadline for submission is August 24, 2012. To submit an abstract for consideration, please respond directly to summit abstracts.

For more information and to register for the conference, please visit http://www.osehra.org.

About OSEHRA

Founded in 2011, OSEHRA supports an open, collaborative community of users, developers, and researchers engaged in advancing electronic health record software and related health information technology. OSEHRA hosts software repositories for applications such as the VA’s and DoD’s EHR systems. For more information, visit http://www.osehra.org.