In February 2022 the Sequoia Project released its Emergency Preparedness Information Workgroup’s Pandemic Response Insights and Recommendations. This workgroup was convened in the fall of 2020 at the height of the pandemic with a diverse set of stakeholders from all areas of the healthcare system. The resulting short report is worth a read as it offers concise analysis and recommendations. The first task the workgroup undertook was to conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis focused on pandemic response. There was a strong public health focus that resulted from this activity: “During a declared emergency, and during non-emergency times as well, public health should be viewed as a collaborator and partner with equal access to shared data” (p. 6).
Open Source Program Offices—New Approaches to Public Sector Open Source
OpenForum Europe (OFE) is excited to invite you to the release event of our report on Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs) in Government. The paper will be discussed over cocktails at the Hotel Mercure Toulouse Centre Compans in Toulouse (France), the evening before the Digital Assembly, the event co-hosted by the French Government and the European Commission. It is an opportunity for stakeholders in the European digital universe to discuss and share their experiences regarding progress on the digital single market and digital policies.
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Open Source Leadership Jam 2022
The US Government and Department of Defense (DoD) will rely on its Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) and University Affiliated Research Centers (UARCs) along with industry to educate and put into place practical policies, guidance, processes, and technology to enact the intent of a recently released memorandum on Open Source Software (OSS). This workshop seeks to start the conversation among these entities and coordinate the means needed to elevate, objectively, the trustworthiness of not only OSS but also the entire OSS ecosystem while continuing to benefit from the speed, innovation, and transparency already seen today.
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Today's Patient Portals CAN NOT Capture Network Value (Part 2)
Today’s patient portals are a mess. The catchphrase “Your mom has 7 portals for 7 providers” sums up patients’ frustrations and the resulting tepid utilization of portals. Today’s portals CAN NOT capture network value. The first post in this series introduced the platform terminology of single-homing vs. multihoming. Patients strongly would prefer to have as few portals as possible — ideally one, i.e., a single “home”. However, patients are forced to subscribe to multiple homes since today’s portals are tethered to individual institutions or care providers. In this post, we’ll introduce the platform terminology of stand-alone vs. network value. Today’s patient portals can provide some stand-alone value, but they provide minimal network value.
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Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense Issues Call For a National Public Health Data System
In April 2022 the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense released a new report titled The Athena Agenda: Advancing the Apollo Program for Biodefense. Established in 2014, the privately-funded commission convenes periodically and conducts research to assess the state of US biodefense efforts and to make recommendations for change and improvement. Spurred by the events surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, this report challenges the country to prepare itself for future pandemics by establishing aggressive goals, gathering our “best and brightest” talent, developing action-oriented plans, and funding their accomplishment as the “next Apollo Program.”
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openEHR international use-cases: The importance of open data
Cattedra: Crossborder collaboration and regional joint registries. An innovative diagnosis of rare immune-mediated inflammatory diseases in children made possible with openEHR. The Cattedra project set up a joint registry and data exchange on rare diseases for children in the area of paediatric rheumatology using open data. The project connects Italian children’s hospital IRCCS Burlo Garofolo in Trieste and Slovenian University Medical Centre Ljubljana (the Division of Paediatrics). With openEHR data models and input forms, the partners aim to share knowledge and work on improving the therapeutic methodologies and diagnostic possibilities of rare immune-mediated inflammatory diseases in children.
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Tech Glitches at One VA Site Raise Concerns About a Nationwide Rollout
Spokane, Washington, was supposed to be the center of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ tech reinvention, the first site in the agency’s decade-long project to change its medical records software. But one morning in early March, the latest system malfunction made some clinicians snap. At Spokane’s Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center, the records system — developed by Cerner Corp., based in North Kansas City, Missouri — went down. Staffers, inside the hospital and its outpatient facilities, were back to relying on pen and paper. Computerized schedules were inaccessible. Physicians couldn’t enter new orders or change patients’ medications.
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Platform Terminology Explains Why Today's Patient Portals CAN NOT Work (Part 1)
Patient portals have tremendous potential — but that potential has not been realized and CAN NOT be realized as portals are currently configured. An understanding of platform business models and strategy explains why today’s patient portals are inherently suboptimal. This essay is the first in an occasional series that will look at patient portals through the lenses of platform business models and strategy. Today’s post will introduce and explain platform terminology of multihoming and single homing. Future posts will look more deeply into “why” current patient portals can’t work and will propose options for portals that could work for patients.
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Open Strategic Autonomy: Public and Private Sector Perspectives
The increased attention on digital autonomy stems from concerns regarding user-control of IT infrastructures, services and products that our economy depends on. In a soon-to-be-published paper by OpenForum Europe, we outline how these concerns are nothing new to people following the open technology space. Put simply, open technologies, in particular open source and open standards, give the user and developer the control that at a societal level delivers digital autonomy.
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The Sequoia Project Releases a Useful Workgroup Report on Information and Pandemic Response
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The National Science Foundation Bets Big On Open Source Platforms
The National Science Foundation (NSF) wants to grow the community of researchers who develop and contribute to open source and enable pathways for collaboration that lead to new technologies that have broad impacts on society...[NSF] just announced US $21 million to fund open source development through a new program: Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (PEOSE).
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