Principles, Vision, Goals

VISION OF OPEN HEALTH TOOLS

Vision: To enable a ubiquitous ecosystem where members of the Health and IT professions can collaborate to build open, standards-based interoperable systems that enable patients and their care providers to have access to vital and reliable medical information at the time and place it is needed.

Open Health Tools

Governance Principles

• All members have single vote• All members sign same agreements:

• Membership Application and bylaws• IP Policy• Conflict of Interest policy• Web Site Terms of Reference• Logo Agreement• Committer and Contributor guidelines and agreements

Members are all equal

• No confidential information• Well established open software development processes and

guidelines which are published and open to all.• All deliberations of Board and Councils are open. (Only personnel

matters are private.)• All projects are open and transparent• Support the open source paradigm which is based upon a

meritocracy, transparency, openness, and non discrimination

Open transparent environment

Open Health Tools Governance Principles

Contribution Model for Projects

• Those who contribute decide• No obligations to contribute• Merit based contributions as selected by peers• Increase participation based upon the self interest of the

participants

Keep the barriers to entry low• Support multi vendor environments• Enable multiple licenses• Commercially friendly license to build vibrant eco-system• To achieve the vision operational work is achieved within the committees and

projects

OPEN HEALTH TOOLS STRATEGY

1. Collaboration - Bring together the major healthcare players into a single organization that includes national healthcare agencies, healthcare providers, practitioners, product/service companies, standards bodies, patients and clinicians.

2 Design & Development - Enable healthcare stakeholders to achieve information interoperability by developing a common software tool platform based on open standards for creating software as well as a range of exemplary tools and several reference / exemplary applications

3 Deployment - Create, nurture and enable suppliers to participate in an ecosystem that allows them to profit from open standards and open source software.

4 Innovation – Utilize open source paradigms of openness, transparency, and meritocracy to nurture and create new and innovative communities and solutions.

GOALS OF OPEN HEALTH TOOLS

CollaborationEnable decision makers, domain experts and implementers to collaborate to design, build and deploy interoperable healthcare systems

• Key Players are involved• Government Agencies – NHS, Canada Infoway, NeHTA, VA …• Companies – IBM, Oracle, …• Standards Bodies – IHTSDO, HL7, …• Academic / Research – OSU, Linköping, …

• Low barriers to entry• Equalitarian Membership Model• Voluntary contribution business model• Open transparent environment based upon meritocracy

GOALS OF OPEN HEALTH TOOLS

(Development)

• Open source community of software developers are designing and developing open standards-based software that meets interoperability requirements of early adopters.

• Open source paradigm is used to develop the technology which enforces open, transparent software development process.

• Combine open standards programs, open source development, multiple cooperating vendors, major health consumers, research and academics into developing successful software technology deliverables.

• Combine a series of councils to integrate the technical/IT and clinical communities.

• Technology harvesting program to identify, outreach, and host health industry software.

• All development is managed through a regular communication and control process that requires regular reports on outcomes, schedules, dependencies.

Design and Develop Open Health Technology:

GOALS OF OPEN HEALTH TOOLS (Deployment)

• Support public, commercial and profit based organizations to deploy, deliver and adopt the technology to make profits and better serve people.

• Build teams that share economies of scale and community collaboration for:• Collaborative marketing and public relations• Collaborative channel, service and support activities• Web portals• Joint “Total Product” offerings• Joint after market programs

• Provide tooling for third party conformance and self certification program so “Open Health Technology” becomes a trusted source for interoperable health tools.

Enable a Healthy Ecosystem to Deploy, Deliver, and Adopt Open Health Technology:

THE APPROACH TO STANDARDS

■ Adopt recognized industry standards and best practices.■ Maintain close working relationships with identified SDOs.■ Provide feedback to SDOs via early adopter program and communities to foster creation

of useful, usable healthcare standards that address real healthcare requirements.

Strategy:

SDOs:

• HL7: CCD, Semantics, Documents, Services• OMG: technical specifications of services• IHE: pragmatic community for adoption• IHTSDO (SNOMED): Semantics, terminology definitions for

healthcare• ASTM: CCR / CCD specifications• ISO/CEN/HL7: EHR requirements and specifications

OHT is NOT a Standards organization.

OHT implements standards in the development of software.