Open source software is thought to be one of the driving forces in overcoming the fragmentation in the health IT market. However, barriers like lack of long-term professional support [editor’s note: this may be universal for all health IT] or uncertainty of cost saving capability hinders open source software to gain a reasonable market share. The workshop “Open Source in European Health Care” is conceptualized as a forum where existing open source projects or initiatives are invited to present their work or their experiences in the field of open source in health care. Submissions from all over the world including position papers are highly welcome.
The workshop is conceptualized as a follow up meeting of the EFMI STC 2008 “Open Source in European Health Care” in London (http://www.chirad.info/efmi_stc).
The workshop invites submissions from all areas of open source in health care. Please find the detailed call for papers on the website (http://www.biostec.org/OSEHC.htm).
Position papers are highly welcome. We are very interested to learn from the experiences of the delegates in the area of open source in the health care sector.
The International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies-BIOSTEC 2009 takes place in Porto, Portugal January 14-17th 2009.
In conjunction with BIOSTEC 2009 the EFMI LIFOSS WG will hold The First International Workshop on Open Source in European Health Care: The Time is Ripe – OSEHC 2009 from 16-17 January 2009.
Chairs are Thomas Karopka, IT Science Center R�gen gGmbH, Germany and Ricardo Joao Cruz Correia, Universidade do Porto, Portugal.
Possible topics include but are not limited to:
open source software –
� tools in all areas of healthcare
� for eLearning and education in the medical
domain
� for knowledge bases and knowledge dissemination
� out of the Medicine 2.0 realm
Position papers may discuss the following problems:
� What are the major challenges for open source in health care?
� Proposals to overcome the identified barriers
� What are the specific requirements for open source software to be accepted by health professionals and institutions?
� What has to be done to push open source in the health care arena?
� What has to be done to make open source software attractive for institutions? Important Dates
Regular Paper Submission: October 17, 2008
Authors Notification: November 10, 2008
Final Paper Submission and Registration: November 17, 2008
The purpose of the 2nd International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies is to bring together researchers and practitioners, including engineers, biologists, health professionals and informatics/computer scientists, interested in both theoretical advances and applications of information systems, artificial intelligence, signal processing, electronics and other engineering tools in knowledge areas related to biology and medicine.
BIOSTEC is composed of three co-located conferences, each specialized in at least one of the aforementioned main knowledge areas. For more information visit the conference web site http://www.biostec.org/