Innovation and Open Technology
Innovation in Healthcare
The Healthcare OSIP is an environment specifically designed to nurture innovation in Healthcare, in addition the same infrastructure can be utilised to connect legacy systems and siloed datasets. The OSIP provides a standardised platform and framework that supports agile development, allowing newly developed and existing applications the ability to access appropriate clinical and demographic datasets of the organisation, with near real time updates. It is comprised of open-source components, that have been carefully selected to ensure they operate well in a healthcare environment, alongside the safety, speed and security requirements that are essential. The goal is to provide an environment for innovators within the organisation to prove their concept in a familiar and relevant data context, while minimising costly investment in new applications and their integration. The OSIP utilises modern components in order to create a flexible platform that can integrate with existing applications as well as provide the infrastructure to allow new ideas and concepts to be trialled, tested and evaluated quickly and if beneficial, rapidly deployed in a safe and secure environment.
A Healthcare Platform
The platform and technology could be used in any industry however it is optimised for healthcare and built to support healthcare messaging standards eg. HL7 or FIHR. Where necessary, bespoke code has been written and this specifically supports clinical data. OSIP is therefore designed to work best in a clinical environment and utilises common healthcare standards.
Open Platform
The Apperta Foundation (https://apperta.org/) published a paper in November 2017 entitled “Defining an Open Platform” that describes how a multi-solution, multi-provider and multi-vendor platform for healthcare should be implemented. They essentially desc ribed the common standards and the implementation methodology to achieve that goal. It is important to realize, that “Open” in this context doesn’t mean “non-commercial” or “free of charge”. It’s simply a way of integrating solutions to an ecosystem, that allows the free exchange of data between the players, and normally based on the use of documented open-API’s.
Open Source Software
Open source software can be defined as software or programs for which the source code is freely available and freely redistributable, with no commercial strings attached eg. licence fees.
The healthcare software market is a conservative environment dominated by well established companies, with a few start-ups emerging. It is very difficult for newcomers to launch successfully due to the need for proven outcomes and references that are often lacking when a company first enters the market.
The OSIP is part of a new wave of software that goes against the traditional grain, and intends to nurture collaboration and innovation, though open technology and the use of standards.
We publish our code under the Apache 2.0 license and most of the used components are under the same or another similar license. (https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
Table of Contents
B. Innovation and Open Technology
D. Outside the current scope of OSIP