The Open Source Observatory ‘is intended to encourage the spread and use of Best Practices in Europe’, according to its
website.
While not primarily health-related, it may help to address one of the issues that was identified as a potential driver for open source (ie the availability of case studies) at the recent IMIA/British Computer Society Health Informatics Committee thinktank meeting (Marwell, UK, February 2004). The need for such resources is an issue that has surfaced in a number of disucssions in recent months – there may be a case for trying to work with the resource, rather than reinvent it.
The Observatory is provided by the European Commission.