open source

See the following -

Ushahidi Pollution Mapping in Louisiana

Matthew Hall | Civic Commons | June 13, 2012

For the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, a non-profit dedicated to citizen sourced pollution monitoring, the Ushahidi platform for crowdsourced reporting and mapping was a natural choice for their already impressive toolset. Read More »

Ushahidi: A Story Of Non-Linear Innovation

Alan Moore | No Straight Lines | January 21, 2013

As described in No Straight Lines – what we face in a complex challenging world is a design challenge. Here is a story of how without spending any money a group of highly motivated people came together from around the world with multiple-design skills and capability, to create what has become the cutting edge in crisis management, and a new radical design of NGO. This organisation is called Ushahidi. Read More »

Using 3D Printers to Tackle Gaza's Medical Shortages

Mersiha Gadzo | Aljazeera | September 5, 2017

The stethoscope, a staple device in modern medicine, is a luxury item in Gaza. At Gaza's largest hospital, al-Shifa, there are only one or two stethoscopes in each department; doctors left without one resort to pressing their ears against patients' chests to diagnose an illness. "That would be the best-case scenario," Canadian doctor Tarek Loubani told Al Jazeera. "If someone's full of blood, most doctors aren't going to put their ears to the chest. So, doctors are making decisions without that piece of information."...

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Using LibreHealth EHR for Education in Academic Settings

Traditionally, access to EHRs has been viewed as important only for software training, particularly order entry. What seems to be overlooked is the potential for education, analytics and research. Additionally, one could argue that there should be an open-source “EHR Sandbox” so multiple external EHR integrations could be studied and reported. Furthermore, many EHR users view the software as a means to enter or extract data on one patient at a time and fail to see the benefit in analyzing their entire clinic population (population health). The following diagram displays how an EHR could be used for education, training, analytics and research.

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Using Open-Source Mapping To Help Stop Ebola

Lou Del Bello | SciDev.Net | June 9, 2014

Last week, 5 June, aid organisation Médecins Sans Frontières reported new cases in the Ebola outbreak in Guinea and Sierra Leone. The priority for NGOs and health workers is to deliver appropriate aid in the fastest and most effective way. To do so, it is vital to have a clear picture of the area affected by Ebola and relevant trends. Read More »

Using OpenStreetMap To Respond To Disasters Before They Happen

Ruth Suehle | OpenSource.com | January 9, 2014

Kate Chapman, executive director of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, gave Tuesday's keynote at Linux.conf.au about preparing and responding for disasters with the help of communities. Read More »

VA Announces Launch of 'Lighthouse Lab' at HIMSS18 Conference

Press Release | US Department of Veterans Affairs | March 7, 2018

...the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced the launch of a “beta” version of its Lighthouse Lab, a computer platform offering software developers access to tools for creating mobile and web applications that will help Veterans better manage their care, services and benefits....Considered the “front door” to VA’s vast data stores, Lighthouse is the department’s application programming interface (API) management platform, and functions similar to a waiter’s role in a restaurant — the critical link communicating orders to the “kitchen.” For VA, the kitchen is the system that will prepare the order then deliver it back to the waiter, or API.

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VA awards $4.9M OSEHRA operations contract

Mary Mosquera | Government Health IT | June 22, 2012

The Veterans Affairs Department has awarded Ray Group International, LLC, of Tampa, Fla., a $4.9 million contract to support the open source community that is contributing software code to the VA and Defense Department integrated electronic health record system. Read More »

VA CIO Baker Responds To Decision To Scrap iEHR At Hearing

Kyle Murphy | EHR Intelligence | February 27, 2013

Before the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, outgoing Chief Information Officer for VA Roger Baker provided testimony and responded to questions from committee members regarding the decision on the part of the VA and the Department of Defense (DoD) to scrap its efforts with the joint integrated EHR (iEHR). Read More »

VA Considers Moving Email, Office Software to the Cloud

Bob Brewin | Nextgov | February 22, 2012

The Veterans Affairs Department plans to test email and other office software in a cloud computing environment and to try out potentially lower cost alternatives to Microsoft Office products -- such as Google Apps -- in two pilot projects set to kick off this year. Read More »

VA Contest Seeks VistA Appointment Scheduling Tools

Mary Mosquera | Government Health IT | October 16, 2012

The Veterans Affairs Department has launched a competition to modernize the software that helps veterans schedule medical appointments as VA moves its VistA electronic health record to open source applications. Read More »

VA Edges Closer to Rollout of New Health Record Platform

Chase Gunter | FCW | May 17, 2016

The Department of Veterans Affairs is edging closer to full deployment of a web-based modular electronic health record platform that promises to build on improvements in interoperability within VA and between VA and the Defense Department. Officials hope to have the Enterprise Health Management Platform up and running by the end of this summer. EHMP is a dynamic, web-based way to organize, display, search, filter and share patient data from VA's open-source VistA health record. EHMP provides a virtual space to develop and deploy specialized health and wellness applications for use by VA providers...

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VA Forming Digital Service Team, Recruiting Experts

Dan Verton | FedScoop | September 3, 2014

The Department of Veterans Affairs is actively recruiting a cadre of top-level developers, designers and digital product managers to form a new Digital Service Team to create and redesign the digital interfaces that veterans and the private sector rely upon to interact with the agency...

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VA Open Source Group Names Board of Health IT Experts

Mary Mosquera | Government Health IT | March 7, 2012

The open source organization that the Veterans Affairs Department created to accelerate innovation in its VistA electronic health record software and to support its integrated EHR system with the Defense Department has established a guiding board of IT luminaries. The Open Source Electronic Health Record Agent (OSEHRA) promotes open, modular architecture that uses non-proprietary standard Read More »

VA Open Source Health Software Site is Open for Business

Bob Brewin | NextGov | August 30, 2011

The Veterans Affairs Department open source electronic health record software website went live today with a pitch that it will serve as the nexus for an "open source community designed to unleash innovation in electronic health record software." Read More »