Category Archives: OSHCA

OSHCA Revival?

There is talk on the new OpenHealth list about a revival of the Open Source Health Care Alliance (OSHCA). At its peak, OSHCA was a hotbed of Free and Open Source in medicine activity, then went quiet when incorporation plans did not proceed. The 2002 Los Angeles meeting was a memorable event indeed with OSCAR and many other projects going mainstream as well as Mike McCoy’s keynote and many other fabulous speakers. Attendee’s were a who’s who of leaders such as Joseph Dal Molin, a large contingent of the VistA community, the Pacific Hui, KS Bhaskar, the Shreeve brothers, Horst Herb, Tim Cook, Andrew Ho and many others. I hope something comes of it.

OSHCA 2003: Call for Papers

‘…We are delighted to announce that the fourth annual [The Open Source Healthcare Alliance (OSHCA)] conference will be hosted by the University Hospital of Geneva, Switzerland, home of Health on the Net (HON), on 7 -9 December, 2003. The conference is being coordinated with two other important events: MEDNET2003 and the World Summit on the Information Society, Platform on ICT Development. (see http://www.mednet2003.org and http://www.ict-4d.org)…Abstracts must be submitted no later than 1 August, 2003. Submissions may be made by completing the abstract submission form at: www.e-cology.ca/oshca2003_call.html’ The full text of the announcement is within.

Call for Presentations

OSHCA 2003 – 4th Annual Open Source Health Care Alliance Meeting

Deadline: 1 August, 2003

Interest and the rate of adoption of Open source methods and
applications in both private and public sectors has gained significant
momentum around the world in this last year. OSHCA is the pioneering and
driving force for this positive and innovative approach to information
technology innovation and dissemination in the health sector.

We are delighted to announce that the fourth annual annual conference
will be hosted by the University Hospital of Geneva, Switzerland, home
of Health on the Net (HON), on 7 -9 December, 2003. The conference is
being coordinated with two other important events: MEDNET2003 and the
World Summit on the Information Society, Platform on ICT Development.
(seehttp://www.mednet2003.org and http://www.ict-4d.org)

This three day conference will consist of presentations, poster sessions
and workshops on a variety of issues concerning the promotion, use and
adoption of open source software in health care as it affects all
participants.

Abstracts must be submitted no later than 1 August, 2003. Submissions
may be made by completing the abstract submission form at: www.e-cology.ca/oshca2003_call.html

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Joseph Dal Molin

UCLA CIO ‘Humbled’ By Open Source Quality

Mike McCoy, MD is Chief Information Officer of UCLA’s sprawling medical center and a champion of Free and Open Source medical software. His keynote speech at the recent OSHCA was remarkable. The following are excerpts from the speech. Errors in quoting him are mine, apologies in advance. �…I am humbled by the quality of open source software. [Medical software] Vendors have awful software behind the scenes because they don’t have a review process. Vendor companies frequently have 500 employees: 495 in sales, the rest in support…Most companies cannot afford to maintain quality sources themselves…�

“Vendor schemes are becoming more elaborate. It is hard to understand what to pay Microsoft, because their licenses have become so complicated…if vendors would focus on great service, they would make more money…Functionality of medical software is miserable…if only it was a matter of money and it isn’t. My budget is $60 million a year but there isn’t much I want to buy…”

“…I am humbled by the quality of open source software. [Medical Software] Vendors have awful software behind the scenes because they don’t have a review process. Vendor companies frequently have 500 employees: 495 in sales, the rest in support. Most companies cannot afford to maintain quality sources themselves…”

“I am concerned about the follow-the-herd ‘upgrading’ to Windows…Companies with good software on Unix migrate to Windows and the transformation is truly grotesque…IDX corp. has converted from Unix to Windows. It was in a nice little Unix box. Solid, reliable and inexpensive. We bought the Windows ‘upgrade’. It runs on a cluster of 20 NT servers with about the same level of service…”

“…Many CIO’s don’t have the nerve [to use open source medical software]. They don’t survive the consultantocracy. There is an incestuous relationship between consultants and commercial software vendors. Consultants love complex, long-term relationships…”

“Why should medical software cost millions of dollars to install?…There are longer term risks with closed source, like the sunsetting of products, and having no option other than to buy software that a bought-out vendor says you must buy. This isn’t apparent at first…Microsoft can now ‘dial a profit’ [with their new licensing scheme]…people are going to pay to keep Microsofts profits up. The entire University of California means nothing to Microsoft, we have no bargaining position…We hope to make UCLA independent of Microsoft so that we can make business decisions…Consultants never recommend open source solutions…Linux systems run for years non-stop on nice little boxes. I can’t imagine what a 1000 bed hospital would look like on Windows. Sometimes the CIO’s don’t know what OS their systems are running on…[Medical] open source developers should focus on little useful tools rather than boiling the ocean. You can be an open source advocate by using open source, not developing open source. Just use it…When UCLA is all open source, that is going to be a powerful message.”

IBM, HP Strategies at OSHCA

Joseph Dal Molin is announcing the draft agenda for 2002 OSHCA which can be found here. ‘…This year, for the first time we will hear what two major vendors’, IBM and HP, strategies are for the open source market. We will also for the first time be co-hosting the regular Developer’s meeting of the remarkable team that has been porting VistA to the Linux/G.TM/x86 platform…’ The full text of the announcement is enclosed within.

OSHCA 2002 Update

Planning for OSHCA 2002 is progressing very well and this years meeting
is shaping up to be as lively and interesting as last years.

This year, for the first time we will hear what two major vendors’, IBM
and HP, strategies are for the open source market.

We will also for the first time be co-hosting the regular Developer’s
meeting of the remarkable team that has been porting VistA to the
Linux/G.TM/x86 platform. If you ever know anything about VistA this is
your chance to meet many of the experts

David Chan’s presented his plans for OSCAR in London last year…OSCAR is up and running at the McMaster Dept. of Family Medicine clinics…come and hear how it was done, see it running and find out where OSCAR is heading next…isn’t Hollywood near LA?

There is much more…and I will highlight a couple of the other events in my next update. The working draft of the agenda can be found at:

http://www.openparadigms.com/oshca2002

Select “All Items” This draft agenda will be updated as we add and
confirm speakers and details. You should soon also be able to find a
copy or link to the agenda at the www.oshca.org site.

We are making arrangements to implement the registration system and plan to have that up soon. In the mean time if you are interested in presenting at OSCHA please send me an email with a brief one to two
paragraph abstract.

—

Cheers,

Joseph Joseph Dal Molin

e-cology corporation www.e-cology.ca