Back in 2010, a task force convened by the HIMSS Health Information Exchange (HIE) Open Source Task Force focused on assessing how open source software was being used by HIE organizations.
According to their definition, HIE refers to any ongoing exchange of electronic clinical information between organizations such as hospitals, physician offices, clinics, clinical research groups, public health entities and quality assurance groups. It also includes the ongoing exchange between care provider organizations and consumers’ personal health records (PHRs).
The Task Force identified several open source development organizations that were solely dedicated to healthcare information technology. The majority of the Task Force’s work effort occurred between September, 2009, and April, 2010, and these organizations are still in the forefront of the movement:
Mirth
Mirth Connect, Mirth Match and Mirth Results support the technical architectural core of HIE activities including the interface engine functions, enterprise master patient index (EMPI) and Clinical Data Repository (CDR).
Mirth also integrates its HIT tools with the CONNECT solution from ONC. CONNECT is an open source software solution that supports health information exchange—both locally and nationally. It uses Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) standards and governance to make sure that health information exchanges are compatible with other exchanges being set up throughout the country.
Misys Open Source Solutions (“MOSS”)
MOSS’s HIE technologies use both open source standards and open source information tools in combination with proprietary application plug-ins to facilitate the exchange of healthcare information between community source systems (e.g. hospitals, physician practices, labs, radiologic centers).
They have developed HIE-in-a-Box™, an HIE solution for mid-tier and smaller hospitals, which will help these organizations meet meaningful use Stage 2 requirements in support of their interoperability requirements and position them for coordination-of-care services.
OpenHRE
OpenHRE.org is an open source site dedicated to the proposition that in the NHIN framework, patient records can be linked and exchanged using Free Open Source Software (FOSS). Their goal is the “timely exchange of information.” They believe that the best way to achieve an open and affordable health records exchange throughout the nation is through free open source software. They are working to enable the secure infrastructure through which both proprietary and open electronic health record (EHR) systems can exchange information.
Tolven
Tolven has four main products related to HIE:
- An electronic Personal Health Record solution (ePHR) that enables consumers to record and selectively share healthcare information, securely.
- An electronic Clinician Health Record solutions (eCHR) that enables physicians and other healthcare providers to securely access healthcare information in a structured and easily accessible way.
- A Healthcare Information Platform that enables healthcare data to be stored in an industry standard data schema as normalized data.
- Tolven provides a Health Analytics solution that enables all data stored in the Tolven Platform to be extracted or analyzed for statistical purposes. The industry-standard technologies used by the Health Analytics solution are what allow aggregated data to be accessed within application, as well as for analysis and reporting.
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