Category Archives: Achievement-award

Thomas Beale Wins 2003 Linux Medical News Achievement Award

Thomas Beale of Ocean Informatics is the recipient of the 2003 Linux Medical News Award. Beale could not attend the award presentation at the Fall AMIA Conference, but Read On for his acceptance Letter. Other nominees were care2x Project,
David Kibbe, MD of the (AAFP), Dr. Stanley Saiki, Jr. Director of the Pacific Telehealth and Technology Hui. Thanks to all of the nominees and the panel of judges: Tim Cook of OpenParadigms, Joseph Dalmolin of e-cology, Dr. Adrian Midgley and myself.

acceptance letter

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It’s an unexpected honour to receive this award, since the work I have been involved in with openEHR has not delivered much “source” at this stage, but it seems that the value of specifications, our work in standards and education is valued, which is a very nice feeling indeed. However, our hope – hopefully a common dream – is that openEHR will help bring a common,
standards-based, open EHR computing platform into being, one that gives every application builder a huge advantage compared to the situation today. The open source health care community will no doubt be pleased to know that the first official release of openEHR, along with some source code, will be available before the end of 2003.

My thanks to Ignacio at LMN, and to all those with whom I have had the pleasure to interact and learn from over the years. Let’s keep building the future!

– thomas beale

2003 Linux Medical News Achievement Award Nominees

Update: 10/11/03 note that while this award will be presented at the Fall AMIA conference, it is not in any way an officially sanctioned event or part of AMIA. The nominations are in for the 3rd annual Linux Medical News Achievement Award. Like past years, the field of nominees are very strong and worthy of the award. The nominees in alphabetical order are:

  • care2x Project
  • Thomas Beale of the OpenEHR foundation.
  • David Kibbe, MD of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP).
  • Dr. Stanley Saiki, Jr. Director of the Pacific Telehealth and Technology Hui

    This award will be presented at the November 8th-12th 2003 American Medical Informatics Association Fall conference at the Marriott Wardham park in Washington, D.C. Exact date and time to be announced. The full text of each nomination is within.

    CARE 2x

    CARE2x is a smart software for hospitals and health care organizations.
    It is designed to integrate the different information systems existing
    in these organizations into one single efficient system.

    CARE 2002 solves the problems inherent in a network of multiple programs that are noncompatible with each other. It can integrate
    almost any type of services, systems, departments, clinic, processes, data, communication, etc. that exist in a hospital. Its design can even handle non-medical services or functions like security, maintenance, etc. It is modular and highly scalable.

    CARE 2002 uses a standard SQL database format for storing and retrieving data. The use of a single data format solves the problem of data redundancy. When configured accordingly, it can support multiple database configuration to enhance data security and integrity.

    It is a web based software and all its functions can be accessed with a common web browser thus there is no need for a special user interface software. All program modules are processed on the server side. Module updates and
    extensions do not require changes on the browsers thus there are no network interruptions and downtimes. Its design supports multiple server configuration to distribute traffic and improve speed and efficiency.

    CARE 2x is authored by Elpidio Latorilla. As an open source development (OSD) project, it is written and distributed under the GNU General Public License which means that its source code is freely-distributed and available to the general public.

    Thomas Beale

    I hereby nominate Thomas Beale of the openEHR Foundation to receive the 2003 LMN Achievement Award.

    Over a period of many years Thomas has been steadfast in his pursuit of the “future-proof” medical record application. Thomas’ keen ability to always listen and gather information from others, yet stay focused and not stray from his mission has produced a set of Reference Models and a set of Archetype Models.

    While this work in itself is significant, Thomas has also been very busy working with other standards bodies to find the common ground and forge a complete and implementable standard for healthcare inforamtion storage, communications and management.

    His world travels and collaborations, quiet leadership and proof through publication puts Thomas Beale in the front of the queue in qualifying for this honor.

    David Kibbe, MD

    David Kibbe was the prime mover and shaker in 2003 on the Free and Open Source Software scene. He led the American Academy of Family Physicians open-source initiative. It was the first attempt that I know of at a standardized open-source electronic health record by a major American medical association.

    Dr. Kibbe showed unusual courage and vision in leading the 50,000 strong AAFP membership towards a unified open-source medical record. Although eclipsed by the e-health initiative, Dr. Kibbe’s initiative may have influenced other major organizations into action.

    Dr. Stanley M. Saiki, Jr.

    I would like to nominate Dr. Stanley M. Saiki, Jr. for the 2003 Linux Medical News achievement award. Dr. Saiki is the Director of the Pacific Telehealth and Technology Hui, a joint venture of the US Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. [Hui is a Hawaiian word for “partnership”.]

    VistA is an enterprise scale healthcare information system, with a patient centric real time electronic health record at the core surrounded by tens of applications. Developed by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), it is the IT basis of the VA’s high standard of healthcare for which it has been repeatedly and publicly recognized. Thanks to VistA, the majority of the VA’s clinical care is paperless, providing any physician treating a patient with up to date online access to all of the records of that patient. Versions of VistA are in use by the US Department of Defense, and the US Indian Health Service, as well as by healthcare institutions around the world. VistA has been proven to scale in a variety of healthcare settings, from a small clinic to a large teaching hospital.

    Although VistA has been in the public domain for many years, available through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the best way to characterize getting up and running with FOIA VistA has been that it is “expert friendly”. Furthermore, FOIA VistA required an underlying software platform that was not open source free software.

    In June, 2003, the Pacific Hui released OpenVista. This was a port of VistA to the open source free software (OSFS) platform stack of GT.M[tm] on GNU/Linux on industry standard computer hardware. In addition to the port, the Hui also released documentation to permit virtually anyone with a core set of Linux skills to get VistA up and running on a computer system. Since then, in the open source healthcare community, there has been a tremendous flurry of activity, and many have successfully bootstrapped themselves with OpenVista on GT.M on Linux. I believe that in 2004 we will see the first production use of this software stack.

    As the Director of the Hui, Dr. Saiki was instrumental in making OpenVista a reality. As a result of his leadership, the OSFS stack of VistA on GT.M on GNU/Linux is a proven software that is easily accessible to all comers.

  • Nominations Open for 2003 Linux Medical News Achievement Award

    Nominations are officially open for the 3rd annual Linux Medical News Software Achievement Award to be presented at the November 8th-12th AMIA Fall conference in Washington, D.C. Open source software isn’t ‘magic pixie dust’ and there are real people making significant personal sacrifices as well as doing difficult work to make medicine’s free software future a reality. This award is intended to honor the individul who has accomplished the most towards the goal of improving medical education and practice through free/open source medical software. Past recipients have been Tim Cook of Open Paradigms and K.S. Bhaskar of Sanchez Computer Associates.

    Individuals can be nominated by themselves or others by sending a 1-2 page essay to ivaldes@hal-pc.org on why the individual nominated should receive the award. The award will be given by a panel of judges to the most deserving nominee. Suitable nominees are not limited to software engineers, but can also be project leaders, academics, journalists, documentation writers and any others who have made significant contributions to open source medical software.

    The award will be given at the November American Medical Informatics Association 2003 Fall meeting in the Marriot Wardham Park in Washington, D.C. at a date and time to be announced. Attendance is not required to win the award. Deadline for nominations is September 15th, 2003.

    Employees of Linux Medical News and their relatives except for my wife Cory are not eligible for the award. Posters to Linux Medical News who are not employed by Linux Medical News are eligible for the award.

    K.S. Bhaskar Receives 2002 LMN Achievement Award

    K.S. Bhaskar of Sanchez Computer Associates is the recipient of the 2002 GNU/Linux Medical News Achievement Award. The award is given to the individual who has contributed the most to medical open source software as decided by a panel of judges. The panel consisted of Tim Cook of OpenParadigms, Joseph Dalmolin of e-cology, Dr. Adrian Midgley and myself. Bhaskar convinced his employer to open source their GT.M MUMPS compiler, thereby making a completely free VistA system possible. Bhaskar says open sourcing was “A strategic investment.”

    Bhaskar further says that it is an ongoing experiment that has so far led to an increase in the purchase of GT.M licenses and an increase in GT.M business for the company. The company has a dual-licensing arrangement. A GPL’ed license on x86/Linux platforms, with proprietary licensing on other platforms.

    GT.M is used in banking as well as health care where 24/365 availability is required. Customers feel secure with open-sourcing of GT.M so that if Sanchez goes out of business they are not stranded.

    Open sourcing GT.M was not an easy undertaking: “It is difficult to overcome pre-conceived notions. Sometimes, you have to put your career on the line.”

    Bhaskar reports that the support cost to Sanchez for open-sourcing is ‘very small’. “We pay Microsoft a lot of money and get very little [support] for it. We run Redhat free and don’t have problems with it.” Saying that Linux is ‘amazingly stable’.

    Nominationees for the 2002 GNU/Linux Medical News Achievement Award

    The nominees for the 2002 GNU/Linux Medical News
    Software Achievement Award in alphabetic order
    are as follows:

  • Thomas Beale, openEHR Foundation
  • Brian Bray, Minoru Development Corp.
  • K.S. Bhaskar, Sanchez Computer Associates.
  • Dr. Daniel L. Johnson, Mayo Clinic.
  • Wayne Rasband, Research Services Branch, National Institute of Mental Health.

    A very distinguished group. The full text
    of each nomination is within. This award will be
    presented at the November 2002

    Thomas Beale

    I hereby nominate Thomas Beale of the openEHR Foundation to receive
    the 2002 LMN Achievement Award.

    Over a period of many years Thomas has been steadfast in his pursuit
    of the “future-proof” medical record application.
    Thomas’ keen ability to always listen and always learn from others,
    yet stay focused and not stray from his mission has this year
    produced the openEHR Reference Model.

    While this work in itself is significant, Thomas has also been very
    busy working with other standards bodies to educate himself and them
    on the differences and similarities among standards. His world
    travels, quiet leadership and proof through publication puts Thomas
    in the front of the queue in qualifying for this honor.

    K.S. Bhaskar

    I want to nominate K.S. Bhaskar of Sanchez Computer Associates, who was directly responsible for convincing Sanchez to open
    source G.TM MUMPS which in turn led to the porting of VistA to the full open source stack on Linux and the creation of WorldVistA. This in my
    opinion is the most significant thing anyone in open source in health
    care has done since we got the ball rolling 5 years ago.

    Brian Bray

    I hereby nominate Brian Bray of Minoru Development to receive the
    2002 LMN Achievement Award.

    Brian’s initial contact with a selected group of open source
    advocates and subsequent hosting of the Toronto Summit was the spark
    that ignited collaboration which eventually gave birth to OSHCA.

    His leadership at Minoru helped to secure funding from the European
    Union for on going open source research projects such as PICNIC.

    Daniel L. Johnson, MD

    I nominate Dr. Daniel L. Johnson for the Second Annual Linux Medical
    News Award. His steadfast commitment to Open Source in healthcare has been a
    shining example of perseverance. His accomplishments include participating at some level in a great
    percentage (if not all) of the OS healthcare projects. He has
    presented open source at AMIA (in fact was the first to do so). He
    has presented open source concepts to major medical institutions.
    His quiet and humble demeanor belies his knowledge and leadership
    by example.

    Wayne Rasband

    I would like to propose a name for the 2002 Linux Medical News Achievement Award, which is more related to free software than strictly on Linux.
    My proposal is for Wayne Rasband (wayne@codon.nih.gov), Research Services Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA, as author of ImageJ (http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/).
    ImageJ is a medical image processing software developed
    and put in the public domain (old-style definition, but
    definitely valid) with source code included by Wayne Rasband.
    The software is inspired by a previously created and carefully
    maintained software named NIH-Image, which was
    available for Macintosh and ported to Windows by
    a third-party.

    What I can personally add is that the software
    is feature full and at a really professional level
    making it compete with commercially available
    software (in the $5000-$10000 range)…
    In addition to the software,, Wayne
    Rasband is taking care of the user community
    through mailing lists and hosting.