Taha Kass-Hout, MD, MSNicolás di TadaOctober 2008

Using Open-Source Software for Public Health

OPEN SOURCE AND FREE SOFTWARE

“Open Source” was coined to avoid the confusion with economic context

Emphasis is on freedom to use, modify and distribute the source code

Open Source does not mean free

“Free” refers to no cost and the freedom to use the software

There are several license models

LICENSE MODELS

BUSINESS MODEL

Where does a commercial company fit here? Build and tie together several open source

packages Provide tested open source solutions and

customer support

OPEN SOURCE BENEFITS

OPEN SOURCE CHALLENGES

May lack a complete documentation No risk but reputation in releasing a product

that is not production ready No support contract and the creator has no

obligation to provide any support The project might get abandoned

WHAT TO LOOK FOR?

Commercial companies giving implementations, consulting and support

Community activity Project history and reputation Success stories Documentation

OPEN SOURCE SAMPLE APPLICATIONS IN PUBLIC HEALTH

BIOCASTER•A collaborative research project

•Infectious diseases and chemicals detection and tracking

•Feature extraction

•Open source and multi-lingual taxonomy (version 2.0 released)

•KML files available for use in Google Earth

•New links to GoPubMed

http://biocaster.nii.ac.jp

TRANSTAT•Test for the presence of human-to-human transmission (or animal-to-animal in veterinary settings)

•Estimate epidemiologic characteristics of the disease

https://www.epimodels.org/midas/transtat.do

MIRTH: HL7 INTERFACE•Platform neutral

•Evolving GUI interface

•Bidirectional messaging

•Remote configuration

•Mirth hardware solutions (Pico, Appliances)

•Uses open source a light-weight messaging framework (Mule)

http://www.mirth.org

INSTEDD: RIFF AND RNA•Riff: Collaboration platform

•RNA: Human collaboration and machine learning for early disease detection and prediction

http://riff.instedd.org

WEKA•A collection of machine learning algorithms for data mining in Java

•Tools for data pre-processing, classification, regression, clustering, association rules, and visualization

http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~ml/weka

PENTAHO•Reporting, analysis, dashboard, data mining and workflow.http://www.pentaho.com

CABIG™: NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE BIOMEDICAL INFORMATICS GRID •A model for large scale collaborative development

•All new projects must be open access and open source

•Compatibility Guidelines (Legacy, Bronze, Silver and Gold) assure that applications meet minimum interoperability requirements.

•Shared data standards repository, sharing and reusing of object classes for applications across the grid. Large suite of applications in development

https://cabig.nci.nih.gov

SAHANA DISASTER MANAGEMENT•Sahana = “relief” in Sinhalese

•Person registry

•GIS Mapping

•Event communications

•Some support provided by Google’s open source initiativehttp://cvs.opensource.lk/index.php

Q&A

THANK YOU!

Taha Kass-Hout, MD, MShttp://www.instedd.org kasshout@instedd.orghttp://taha.instedd.org

Nicolás di Tadahttp://www.manas.com.arnditada@manas.com.arhttp://weblogs.manas.com.ar/ndt/

REFERENCES Open Source License References

http://www.opensource.org/licenses http://openacs.org/about/licensing/open-source-licensing

Open Source References http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/open-source-life-how-the-

open-movement-will-change-everything.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source http://www.opensource.org/ 

Open Source and Public Health References Open Source Development for Public Health: A Primer with Examples of

Existing Enterprise Ready Open Source Applications in Turner (2006) http://www.ibiblio.org/pjones/wiki/index.php/

Open_Source_Software_for_Public_Health http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_healthcare_software http://www.epha.org/a/320 A Quick Survey of Open Source Software for Public Health Organizations

in Mirabito and Kass-Hout (2007)