EpiSurveyor and the Call For Open Source Mobile Healthcare Applications

Sam Dean | O Static | April 28, 2009

Have you ever heard of EpiSurveyor? It's an open source tool designed to allow anyone in the world to create handheld data entry forms, use them to collect data on mobile devices, and transfer the data to other devices for analysis.

Developed by Dr. Joel Selanikio (shown), it's widely used in public health efforts all around the world, for disease surveillance and collecting public health data. Today, the Lemelson-MIT Program has announced that Selanikio is the recipient of its 2009 $100,000 Award for Sustainability for his contributions to public health. Here is what's significant about EpiSurveyor, and how there is room for open source apps like it.

As people all around the world increasingly tote mobile devices, their smartphones, netbooks and other gadgets also become increasingly potentially potent as data collection devices, and collecting health data is a good application of this concept. I've written before about how the open source community could have a big impact on the new wave of "doctor apps" for mobile devices.

When Apple showed off its early version of the iPhone 3.0 operating system recently, it also showed applications designed to monitor the blood pressure and glucose levels of iPhone owners, and send the data off to remote doctors. Many more of these applications are on the way.