The British Computer Society Open Source Specialist Group held a one-day conference on open source health informatics on 27th October 2010. The event was well attended and sparked some lively discussion.
Prof John Chelsom presented an overview of Open Health Informatics – see the slides here.
It was interesting that the audience generally seemed to equate open source software with communty-led collaborative development and perhaps some education is needed about the types of (ofter commercially-backed) professional development teams that lie behind much successful open source initiatives.
Derek Meyer (St George’s Hospital, London) had some interesting ideas and a follow up meeting was arranged with him to discuss ideas around a next generation of the NHS Data Spine as the backbone for open access to Personal Health information.
