The success of open source software in other fields has generated a surge of interest in open source for healthcare. Open source initiatives not only help reduce costs for the patients and healthcare providers but also establish standards that are necessary to prevent vendor lock-in. The National Health Information Network (NHIN) project is aimed at modernizing the US Healthcare Information Infrastructure (HII) by integrating various regional health centers. Such an initiative requires standardization of protocols and data models. Eclipse Open Health Framework (OHF) is the official open source organization for HL7 and one of the leading efforts to deliver an open source, standards-based platform, for healthcare software. In this paper, we present an overview of the OHF project, describe the technologies it will provide in the near future, and discuss possible future directions for this important community.
By: Srivatsava R. Ganta, Eishay Smith, Sarah E. Knoop, Sondra R. Renly, James H. Kaufman
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