List of open source healthcare software

[Sam Vaknin, author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited]

You can download all these software FREE OF CHARGE!

 

Categories

[edit] Public Health and Biosurveillance

• Epi Info is public domain statistical software for epidemiology developed by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• EpiSPIDER Geographic information systems for emerging diseases
• iDART Open Source Pharmacy dispensing and stock control system
• influsim Influenza Pandemic simulator
• OpenELIS Open Source Enterprise Laboratory Information System
• OpenEMed Biosurveillance and clinical data repository based on web services. Offers solid interoperability and federation of clinical data.
• RODS Real-time Outbreak and Disease Surveillance (RODS) is Open Source public health surveillance software. RODS collects and analyzes disease surveillance data in real time and has been in development since 1999 by the RODS Laboratory—a collaboration of the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University
• Sispread Epidemic simulation
• TriSano^(TM) is an open source, citizen-centric surveillance and outbreak management application for infectious disease, environmental hazards, and bioterrorism attacks. It allows local, state and federal entities to track, control and ultimately prevent illness and death.
• Zyxware Health Monitoring System Real-time Monitoring of communicable diseases and presentation of the information on a map. This is a GNU GPL software written in PHP/MySQL and uses the Google Maps API to track occurrences of diseases in a geographical region. The software is developed and maintained by Zyxware Technologies

[edit] Electronic health or medical record

• CHITS Community Health Information Tracking System - EHR for public health community centres in developing countries
• ClearHealth Clearhealth - Flexible and standards compliant EMR/EHR
• elementalClinic - open source web-based EMR for mental health written in Perl, licensed under the GPL. Also available as a hosted service.
• FreeMedForms - open source (c++/Qt4.5) highly dynamic EMR. FreeMedForms is released under the BSD license and is intended to be fully internationalized.
• GNUmed is a WxPython application that uses PostGreSQL.
• FFEHR Free Feathers Electronic Health Record - EHR application developed using the Mozilla programming framework. FFEHR can run independently or within the Firefox browser.
• HealthForge - a .Net e-health groupware solution with EMR, Practice Management and patient/physician connectivity. Built on the popular DotNetNuke framework.
• Hospital OS Open source hospital information system in Thai
• HOSxP
• Indivo - open source, personally controlled health record system that enables patients to own complete, secure copies of their medical records. Powers the Dossia framework
• Medical a multi-user, highly scalable, centralized Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and Hospital Information System (HIS) for openERP
• openEHR Inter-operable, implementation independent Health Record Specifications [1]
• OpenEMR an open-source Electronic Medical Record (EMR) software.
• Open Healthcare
• OpenMRS is a community-developed, open-source, enterprise EMR framework. Extensible and scalable EMR based on Java.
• OpenVista is a VistA-based distribution with a cross-platform, GTK/C# based clinical front-end. Both client and server are licensed under the AGPL. Reference deployments in a range of small and large facilities.
• OSCAR McMaster an open-source Electronic Medical Record (EMR) software. The billing component of the software is specialized for the needs of the Canadian health care providers.
• PatientOS a rich client open-source EMR designed to evolve to a healthcare information system.
• SmartCare
• Tolven Healthcare
• TORCH - Easy to install and customize EMR application in Python. [2]
• VistA — Veterans Administrations integrated Electronic Health Record and Electronic Image Record system available for non-governmental use on MUMPS licensed systems as WorldVistA.
• ZEPRS The ZEPRS application is an electronic patient record system that enables clinicians to enter data from patient visits using a web browser.

[edit] Medical Practice Management Software

• Care2x Hospital information system/practice management system/EHR
• ClearHealth ClearHealth covers the five major areas of practice operations including scheduling, billing, EMR, HIPAA Security and accounts receivable. It offers a fully comprehensive system which now offers tools like E-Prescribing, Drug Interactions, Electronic Labs and Lab ordering. It is the largest open source healthcare solution serving more than 500 sites including the Primary Care Coalition network in MD with 50 sites and around 100,000 patients.
• FreeDiams - open source (c++/Qt4.5) prescriber and drugs interactions tester. FreeDiams is released under the BSD license and is intended to be fully internationalized but for now drugs database and interactions database are only available in french.
• FreeMED is a practice management and electronic and computer records system. It allows the tracking of medical data, in detail, with preservation not just of the diagnosis but the reasons for medical encounters. FreeMED is released under the LGPL GNU license. FreeMED is an HIPAA compliant FOSS Practice Management System that handles billing.
• MedinTux MedinTux is a French medical practice management system, with a web interface as well as a desktop one, that has been initially to manage a hospital emergency department. Being very modular, it has been extended to run also many different smaller practices. It works on GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows
• MirrorMed MirrorMed is a free and open source EHR and practice management system written in PHP. MirrorMed is a web-based application that is capable of running a healthcare practice. MirrorMed shares code with FreeMED, and OpenEMR. MirrorMed is primarily sponsored by SynSeer.
• Office Manager Encompassing office management healthcare software for medical practices, doctors groups, DMEs, retailers, etc. It does User/patient management, point of sale, scheduling, sign-in, inventory, insurance claims, accounting, etc. Any OS!
• Open Dental Dental practice management software wiki article Open dental
• OpenEMR (see also the OpenEMR wikipedia article)
• OpenTAPAS Technology Assisted Practice Application Suite (TAPAS) is a term that describes digital tools that assist physicians deliver care in a paper based office
• Elexis Praxisprogramm is an Eclipse RCP program for all aspects of a medical practice: electronic medical record (EMR), laboratory findings etc., as well as accounting, billing (Swiss TARMED-System, other systems to be developed) and other daily work

[edit] Health System Management

• DHIS Open-source district health management information system and data warehouse (license: BSD license)
• iHRIS Suite Open source platform for management of human resources for health developed by IntraHealth International and funded by USAID (license: GPLv3)

[edit] Imaging/Visualization

• 3D SlicerMedical Visualization and Processing Environment for Research
• Amide tool for viewing, analyzing, and registering volumetric medical imaging data sets, actively being developed
• BioImageXD software for analysis, processing and 3D rendering of multi dimensional, multi data channel, time series image data from microscopy and other sources
• BrainStorm an electro/magnetoencephalography (EEG/MEG) data processing and vizualisation toolbox.
• BrainVisa a brain imaging package including data processing and visualization capabilities, such as T1-based gyrus segmentation, diffusion-based fibertracking, PET, MEG, EEG and more.
• CDMedic PACS
• ClearCanvas Workstation is an open source DICOM workstation and application framework for developing medical imaging applications.
• CTSIM Computed Tomography Simulator, active development
• DCM4CHE Open Source Clinical Image and Object Management written in java
• DCMTK is a collection of libraries and applications implementing large parts the DICOM standard
• DeVIDE is the open source (BSD-style license) and cross-platform (Windows, Linux) Delft Visualization and Image processing Development Environment, a visual programming system focused on medical visualization and image processing. DeVIDE incorporates VTK, ITK, numpy, matplotlib, DCMTK and GDCM. Latest features include a visual DICOM browser.
• dicom4j An open source DICOM Java framework.
• Dicom4j-apps Free and open-sources DICOM applications in Java.
• DICOM Router a variety of DICOM related utilities
• DICOM Validation Tool (DVT) is a software utility and a set of .NET components that will assist in testing the medical / healthcare protocol DICOM. DVT provides you the methods to transfer and validate DICOM objects.
• Drishti is a volumetric visualisation package for viewing Computer Tomography data. Able to import DICOM image stacks.
• ecg2png Program designed to convert scanned 12-lead electrocardiograms into PNG format
• Endrov Image and data viewer and editor
• Eviewbox Java medical imaging software
• GDCM Grassroots DiCoM is a C++ library for DICOM medical files. It is automatically wrapped to python/C#/Java (using swig). It supports RAW,JPEG (lossy/lossless), J2K,JPEG-LS,RLE and deflated. It also comes with DICOM Part 3,6 & 7 of the standard as XML files.
• Imlib3d C++ library for 3D (volumetric) image processing
• ITK Segmentation and Registration Toolkit
• ITK-SNAP Interactive software for 3D image navigation, annotation and automatic segmentation
• kradview Free (GPL) DICOM viewer, for Linux and FreeBSD.
• METK is an open source toolkit to visualize and explore medical datasets.
• miniwebpacs storage, control and recovery of medical images and information in healthcare providers of small and medium capacity. Such system is based on the DICOM standard and in the actual WEB technologies.
• MITK Medical Imaging Interaction Toolkit
• NIRFAST NIRFAST is an open source FEM based software package designed for modeling Near Infrared Frequency domain light transport in tissue.
• O3-RWS is the Radiology Workstation of the Open Three ( O3 ) Consortium. According to the IHE definitions, O3-RWS is an Open Source, DICOM based, Internationalized, Modular and Portable Image Display actor plus the integration of several other IHE actors.
• OsiriX - [3] 3D DICOM Medical Viewer for Mac OS X. Complete DICOM Viewer with DICOM network support
• Ogles is a three-dimensional volume and slice data visualization tool
• Opensource PACS Wet Read system includes: image order, image reconciler, radiologist workstation (DICOM viewer), DICOM structured reporting, web-based summary of patient diagnosis. (see Projects under Navigation box)
• ParaView Large Scale Visualization tool
• PhP Nuke healthcare PHP-Nuke based system for Health Institutes. X-Ray and Register modules for storing patient data with pictures. System is DICOM compatible
• Tempo(Topographic Eeg Mapping PrOgram) is open source software for 3D visualization of brain electrical activity
• Virtual PACS allows radiologists to use a DICOM workstation to access multiple DICOM repositories as a single federated virtualized PACS. The DICOM repositories are exposed on caGrid and can include PACS, image archives such as National Cancer Imaging Archive or other DICOM data warehouses.
• Voreen stands for Volume Rendering Engine. It is a library providing essential functionality for visually exploring volume data sets. Voreen supports most relevant data formats as for instance DICOM and is currently used in medical visualization as well as for visualizing electron microscopy data.
• VTK Visualization Toolkit
• Xebra (medical imaging software)

[edit] Medical Information Systems

• Blood_collection is a Web based software to increase the number of donors in blood collections by managing slots for registrations, with a front-end to delegate the blood collection creation and administration (license: GPL)
• Caisis is a web based information system for the storage and analysis of cancer patient data intended to bridge the gap between clinic and research (license: GPL)
• OpenClinica is a web-based application that facilitates electronic data capture in clinical trials. The system is free but commercial support is available (license: LGPL)
• Open Infrastructure for Outcomes (OIO) system enables clinicians, researchers, and other non-programmers to create and maintain flexible and portable patient/research records
• openMEDIS is a simple, flexible, and standardized Web based tool to collect and process information on health technology infrastructure in low- and middle income countries (license: GPL)
• Resmedicinae Open source medical information system for GPs (license: GPL)
• trilonis-mc For managed healthcare group eligibility, billing, capitation, and claims adjudication. Aimed at TPAs, HMOs, PPOs, and self-insured employers. HIPAA compliant. Will handle medical, dental, vision, psych, section 125 and COBRA (license: GPL)

[edit] MPI - Master Patient Index

• Mural Project The Open Source Mural Project from Sun is a robust Master Index. It can be configured as a Master Patient Index, Master Provider Index, or any other Index. Fully extensible and configurable. Many existing installations prove scalability and functionality. By making use of the available PIX/PDQ implementation (http://kenai.com/projects/healthcaresolutions), it is IHE Comliant. Commercial licensing and support are available.

[edit] Standards Libraries

• HAPI (HL7 application programming interface; pronounced "happy") is an open-source, object-oriented HL7 2.x parser for Java
• nHAPI .Net version of HAPI (http://hl7api.sourceforge.net/).
• HL7 Inspector 2 HL7 analysis and validation tool
• O3-DPACS stands for “Open Three ( O3 ) - Data & Picture Archiving and Communication System”. O3-DPACS is a DICOM & HL7 based IHE compliant Open Source PACS extended to any type of data

[edit] Older Libraries

• Open LIS-HL7 HL7 library written in Delphi 6, last updated in 2002
• ProtoGen/HL7 an implementation of HL7 in C++, last updated in 2001
• hl7lib Software implementing Health Level 7 protocols commonly used in the medical industry, last released in the year 2000
• HL7ImExa is table driven set C routines to encode/decode HL-7 messages, last updated in 1996

[edit] Signal Processing

• BioSig library for biomedical signal processing featuring, for example, the analysis of biosignals such as the electroencephalogram (EEG), electrocorticogram (ECoG), electrocardiogram (ECG), electrooculogram (EOG), electromyogram (EMG), respiration, and so on License: GPL
• ecg2png Program designed to convert scanned 12-lead electrocardiograms into PNG format

[edit] Research

• BioMail is a small web-based application for medical researchers, biologists, and anyone who wants to know the latest information about a disease or a biological phenomenon. It is written to automate searching for recent scientific papers in the PubMed Medline database
• caGrid is an underlying service oriented infrastructure that supports caBIG, an initiative of the National Cancer Institute
• Jumper 2.0 is a Science 2.0 technology that uses knowledge tags to capture knowledge about data in remote data stores. It collects these in tag profiles that are stored in a Knowledge base and search engine.
• MIX Meta Analysis software for Excel
• OpenClinica is a web-based platform for managing clinical studies, created by Akaza Research. Key functions include EDC, CRF, protocol, and site management.

[edit] Operating System

• BioLinux

[edit] Data Translation

• Chiapas is a data translation package that handles mapping, encoding and decoding data between ANSI X12 4010A1 HIPAA data files and a variety of text, file, and database data sources. It works as a C#/.NET project add-in or a standalone clearinghouse.
• GlassFish ESB Robust open source, light weight integration engine making use of JSR-208 (JBI). Full HL7 V2 and V3 support. Many transport protocols supported including Web Services, HL7 MLLP, TCP/IP, file, batch, etc.
• Mirth is an open source cross-platform interface engine that enables bi-directional sending of HL7, NCPDP, X12 and DICOM messages between systems and applications over multiple transports. It has data translation capabilities between a large number of formats including database, XML, file, HL7 2.x, and HL7 3.
• Bots Bots open source EDI translator. Any-to any-translations. Supported data formats: hl7 version 3, edifact, XML, X12, SAP idoc, flat-file, JSON. HL7 version 2 is in development.

[edit] Mobile / Handheld Devices

• CommCare an application of JavaROSA to support community health workers to plan their day, manage household visits, and report their data. Jointly developed by many organizations including D-tree International, Dimagi, and the University of Washington.
• Epihandy Handheld survey/data collection application
• The EpiSurveyor Project Handheld survey/data collection application
• FrontlineSMS enables users to send and receive text messages with large groups of people through mobile phones.
• Gather AED-Satellife standards-based application for data collection and reporting, with pluggable and interchangeable components/modules for data entry from a full range of wired and mobile computing devices
• InSTEDD Several unique open-source tools for group-based SMS communication, assisted collaboration, real-time analytics, and mesh synchronization based on mobile technologies
• JavaROSA open-source J2ME platform for data collection and decision support on mobile devices (used by Episurveyor, Epihandy, GATHER, and CommCare listed below)
• MobilizeMRS Software that enables health workers to utilize electronic medical records remotely via SMS (using OpenMRS).
• Mobilisr open source enterprise class mobile messaging platform - used in outreach campaigns for HIV
• MoCa MoCa is a remote medical diagnostics platform for health workers in developing nations.
• National Heart and Lung Institute medical software for handhelds
• RapidSMS RapidSMS is a communications platform for coordinating SMS, voice messages, IVR menus, and email with user and group management - developed by UNICEF
• Ushahidi Allows people to submit crisis information through text messaging using a mobile phone, email or web form. Displays information in map view.

[edit] Integration

• GlassFish ESB Robust open source, light weight integration engine making use of JSR-208 (JBI). Full HL7 V2 and V3 support. Many transport protocols supported including Web Services, HL7 MLLP, TCP/IP, file, batch, etc.
• Jengine apparently dead integration engine project written in java
• Mirth is an open source cross-platform HL7 interface engine that enables bi-directional sending of HL7 messages^[1] between systems and applications over multiple transports.
• i2b2 - open source, web services framework designed to provide an integrated, intelligent search engine across many different clinical databases (conceptually termed the 'Clinical Research Chart' by the developers). Consists of a server 'Hive' (loosely coupled functional/messaging units) and a client interface (Eclipse-based or web-based).

[edit] Coding

• OpenGalen computer-based multilingual coding system for medicine
• [4] NHS Common User Interface (CUI) Programme. This enables a common look and feel across the five regions of the NHS as prescribed within the NHS plan.
• ODIN Object-oriented Development Interface for NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance)

[edit] Data (free data related to the healthcare industry)

• ICD National Center for Health Statistics Classification of Diseases and Functioning&Disabilities
• LOINC Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes - database of codes and universal identifiers for laboratory and other clinical observations
• The National Drug Code Directory National Drug Code Directory

[edit] Telemedicine

• IPath open source telemedicine platform
• ZephyrOpen Open source SDK for Health Monitoring Devices, like Heart rate monitor

[edit] IHE

• IHEOS implementation of IHE (Integrating the Healthcare Environment) actors. IHE defines profiles for the use of various standards in the healthcare environment
• GELLO - GELLO is the ANSI-accredited standard, HL7 Guideline Expression Language, Object Oriented. Gello.org is an effort to build open source authoring tool for creating GELLO expressions for multiple uses - including decision support, drug prior authorization, matching patients to clinical trials, etc.
• MARiS Project The MARiS Project goal is to realize a package suite for Radiological Workflow using Open Source tools and technologies in according with IHE guidelines. The architecture of the single packages is based on the concept of IHE actor: this is very useful to develop a system that is an ensemble of single pieces that cooperate together using IHE profiles.
• Mural Project The Open Source Mural Project from Sun is a robust Master Index. It can be configured as a Master Patient Index, and using the available PIX/PDQ implementation (http://kenai.com/projects/healthcaresolutions), it is IHE Comliant
• HIEOS HIEOS is an open source implementation of IHE Cross Enterprise Document Sharing (XDS.b) and the Cross Community Access (XCA) integration profiles. The HIEOS platform enables secure health information exchange between various health communities, thereby enabling care providers to have longitudinal perspectives of patients’ health records.
• The Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) has developed a range of open-source interoperability testing tools called MESA, KUDU and its next generation tool GAZELLE to test healthcare interoperability according to the standards profiled by IHE in its technical Frameworks (See below Interoperability testing).

[edit] Private Health Record

• Tapeworm Gnome-desktop health profiler to keep track of your diet, including calories and %'s of fat, carbs, and protein, exercise, blood glucose, weight, etc...

[edit] Other

• OpenHRE(tm) Browsersoft Inc. OpenHRE Tool Kit - Proven and scalable platform for establishing Health Information Exchanges and deriving Meaningful Use of collected data. Includes Patient Locater Service/MPI, Record Exchange Service, Authentication and Access Control Service and Business Intelligence capabilities. Used to deploy and demonstrate a Nationwide Health Information Network Prototype. Used to deploy working Health Information Exchanges for State, Metropolitan and Rural intiatives.
• [5] ActiveHealth Open HIE API - example programs for building industry standard HIE web services interfaces to the ActiveHealth platform clinical intelligence services which include the CareEngine advanced clinical decision support, ActivePHR personal health record/health risk assessment, ActiveAdvice care management desktop, and performance measures.
• [6] RetroGuide epxress - a tool for EHR data analysis (quality improvement, decision support, research) based on workflow technology
• Lamdi Linux Anesthesia Modular Devices Interface
• Physionet a collection of software for
  • WFDB Software for viewing, analyzing, and creating recordings of physiologic signals
  • record an application for capturing data from an HP CMS (Merlin) monitor
  • apdet Hilbert Transform based Sleep Apnea Detection using a Single Lead Electrocardiogram
  • ecgwave QRS detection and waveform boundary recognition using ecgpuwave
  • edr Derive a respiration signal from one or more ECG signals
  • puka software for detection of breaths in strain gauge recordings
  • many more components available in the Physionet Software Index
• Medical Algorithms Project Not really software or strictly open source but usable medical algorithms nonetheless
• [7] HL7 Message browser and radiological image distribution. Last build was in 2003
• MedMapper Medical decision making algorithm tool. Visual design tool generates Tcl/Tk code. Non-programmers can design interactive algorithms. Generates notes for inclusion in medical record. Runs freestanding or in Tcl Plugin.
• OS-ELN Web based Electronic Lab Notebook
• hxp Healthcare Xchange Protocol for interoperative communications. Data exchange/transfer, platform independent, XML-RPC, HL7, SOAP, EDIFACT. Not much activity since 2004.
• OHF Eclipse foundation Healthcare project to create components to improve interoperability in the healthcare industry
• Ideopass/ component to manage the identity of the patients in healthcare organizations
• SQLCare is a clinical database/web application for healthcare providers in the United States
• EGADSS is an open source tool that is designed to work in conjunction with primary care Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems to provide patient specific point of care reminders in order to aid physicians provide high quality care
• 03-MARIS HE compliant Department System IHE Order Filler and PPS Manager, for scheduling and workflow management in radiology department
• 03-RWS IHE compliant Internationalized Modular Portable Radiology workstation
• 03-TEBAN allows 3D reconstruction of brain electrical activity from magnetic resonance measurements (MRI) and brain activity mapping even in pathological patients.
• 03-Fat Brother software for monitoring DICOM and HL7 services
• 03-XDS is an XDS complete System
• ROC.KIT This application allows for automated calculation of ROC curves (Receiver-Operating-Characteristic) from continuous medical data like laboratory results.
• MyDrugRefis a social network of clinicians and pharmacists to improve prescribing. The project is based on Ruby on Rails.

[edit] Out of the box distributions

• Debian-Med largest Linux distribution for free medical software — welcomes requests for packaging based on a solid evaluation.

[edit] Interoperability testing

• The Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) has developed a range of open-source interoperability testing tools called MESA, KUDU and its next generation tool GAZELLE to test healthcare interoperability according to the standards profiled by IHE in its technical Frameworks. These tools are used by commercial and open source implementers. In particular they allow to prepare and perform conformance and interoperability testing at the IHE Connectathons, testing events regularly held around the world each involving over 100 systems.
• The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT) has developed an open-source program called Laika to test EHR software for compliance with CCHIT interoperability standards.

[edit] See also

Free software portal

• eHealth
• mHealth
• Health Informatics
• Hospital information systems
• List of freeware health software

[edit] References

1. ^ HL7 Introduction and FAQ "What is HL7 Version 2.x?". http://www.HL7.com.au/FAQ.htm#V2.x. 

[edit] External links

• Open-Source EHR Systems for Ambulatory Care: A Market Assessment (California HealthCare Foundation, January 2008).
• http://freemedsw.apfelkraut.org - Alternative compilation of Open Source software for the health care sector with additional information.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_healthcare_software"

 

Free Medical Software

http://freemedsw.apfelkraut.org, last updated: 02. August 2009

Major updates of this overview or related news will be announced on my blog under category Open Source .

This link collection should provide an overview of Open Source software for the health care sector.

My understanding of Open Source is like it is defined by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) in “The Open Source Definition”. To the best of my knowledge I included only projects that are conform to this definition. Most of them are published under one of the popular open source licenses like GPL, LGPL, MPL or the Apache license (Overview of open source licenses by the OSI).

Furthermore only active projects are included (last news or releases not older than a year).

I do not provide any guarantee for the correctness of the here listed information. I would greatly appreciate it if you could leave a comment or send me a message in case of a broken link, incorrect information or improvement suggestion(s).

• You can submit new projects here.

As this is at the moment only a static page, I cannot assign a project to different categories. So I listed them under the category to which they fit most. For example: practice/hospital management systems normally offer also features to create a EMR, but their primary purpose is to support the users in managing their practice/hospital.

Available categories:

• Billing
• Clinical Research
• DICOM Tool(kit)
• DICOM Viewer/Server
• Disaster/Disease Management
• Electronic Medical Record
• HL7 Tool(kit)
• Homeopathy
• Hospital Management
• Integration Tool(kit) / Middleware
• Laboratory
• Practice Management
• Radiology
• Signal Processing
• Telemedicine
• Veterinary Medicine
• Visualization
• Other
• Standards

There are other similar listings to which I referred to while creating this one. For details please see Further Sources at the end of this page.

Project attributes are listed in the following way:

<project name> [<used license> | <platform> | <client type>] – <project description>

<platform>: Lists all platforms on which the application can be installed and executed. In case of a client-server system that offers web-based access, this represents just the supported platform(s) for the server.

<client type>: Specifies the type of client. “native” means that you have to installed some sort of software on your local workstation to be able to access the application. “web-based” means that you can access the application via a Web browser.

<project description>: A short description of the project. Mostly this is just a copy & paste from the homepage of the project or from the related project page at sourceforge.net.

Billing

• FreeB [GPL | unknown | unknown] – FreeB was the first GPL Medical Billing Engine. FreeB supports the HCFA 1500 and X12 837p 4010a formats. FreeB 2.0 (PHP) is developed by Uversa Inc. and SynSeer. FreeB 1.0 (Perl) is still used by the OpenEMR project. FreeB 1.0 was rewritten as REMITT which is used by the FreeMED project.

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Clinical Research

• cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid™ – The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has launched the caBIG™ initiative to accelerate research discoveries and improve patient outcomes by linking researchers, physicians, and patients throughout the cancer community. The caBIG™ community has developed and released a variety of bioinformatics tools of which an overview is available here. For more details refer to the Open Source Project Site of the National Cancer Institute’s Center for Bioinformatics (NCICB)
• Caisis [GPL | Windows | web-based] – Caisis is an open-source Web application designed to bridge the gap between clinical research and clinical practice by addressing numerous issues in documentation of patient data. The application was originally designed to track data pertaining to urologic cancer, but now has expanded to track data of other cancers.
  Useful : “The Caisis Project: integrating patient care, research systems and workflows” [2007] by Vora and Fearn.
• Jumper 2.0 [GPL | multi-platform | web-based] – Bookmarking engine for tagging and linking data objects across remote locations using tag metadata to capture knowledge about data in remote data stores.
• MIX [GPL | Windows | native] – The MIX program is meta-analysis software for Excel 2000 or later that works like a standalone application. It is thoroughly validated and can be used for educational as well as scientific purposes. (Excel is proprietary software)
• OpenClinica [LGPL | Linux | web-based] – OpenClinica is a free, open source, web-based electronic data capture (EDC) system for clinical research.
  Useful : “Could an Open-Source Clinical Trial Data-Management System Be What We Have All Been Looking For?” [2008] by Fegan and Lang.
• Open Infrastructure for Outcomes [GPL | multi-platform | web-based] – OIO is a Web-based medical/patient, user-extensible forms, and online analysis system. It is used at Harbor-UCLA for health/treatment outcomes data. Forms can be exported+imported as XML and exchanged via the online OIO Library at www.TxOutcome.Org. (last news or releases older than a year)
• phpESP [BSD | multi-platform | web-based] – php Easy Survey Package (phpESP) is a collection of PHP scripts to let non-technical users create surveys, administer surveys, gather results, view statistics. All managed online after database initialization.
• PyEPL [LGPL | Mac, Linux | native] – PyEPL (Python Experiment-Programming Library) is a library for coding psychology experiments in Python. It supports presentation of both visual and auditory stimuli, and supports both manual (keyboard/joystick) and sound (microphone) input as responses.
• R Project [GPL | Windows, Mac, Unix | native] – R is a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics.
  • EpiTools [GPL | see above | see above] – Epidemiology tools (epitools) is an R package for epidemiologic computing and graphics.
  • Surveillance [GPL | see above | see above] – The R-package ’surveillance’ is a framework for the development and the evaluation of outbreak detection algorithms in univariate and multivariate routine collected public health surveillance data.
• SOFA [LGPL/GPL | Windows, Mac, Linux | native] – Simulation Open-Framework Architecture (SOFA) is an Open Source framework primarily targeted at real-time simulation, with an emphasis on medical simulation. It is mostly intended for the research community to help develop newer algorithms, but can also be used as an efficient prototyping tool.

Useful : “Free and Open Source Enabling Technologies for Patient-Centric, Guideline-Based Clinical Decision Support: A Survey” [2007] by Leong, Kaiser and Miksch.

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DICOM Tool(kit)

• Charrua DICOM Toolkit [GPL | multi-platform | native] – DICOM basic constructs used to create the tools at CharruaSoft.com. Its C++ code is a re-interpretation of the original UCDMC library by Mark Oskin. It tries to be much simpler and compact, also uses many Borland VCL specific structures.
• dcm4che [MPL, GPL, LGPL | multi-platform | web-based] – Open Source Clinical Image and Object Management.
  Useful : “Benefits of Using the DCM4CHE DICOM Archive” [2007] by Warnock et al.
• DCMTK – DICOM Toolkit [unknown | Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris | native] – DCMTK is a collection of libraries and applications implementing large parts the DICOM standard.
• dicom3tools [BSD | Mac, Linux | native] – Command line utilities for creating, modifying, dumping and validating files of DICOM attributes, and conversion of proprietary image formats to DICOM. Can handle older ACR/NEMA format data, and some proprietary versions of that such as SPI.
• dicom4j [LGPL, GPL | multi-platform | web-based] – Dicom4j is a free and open source Dicom framework for Java. This framework will help to develop DICOM compliant applications. Dicom4j based applications are available from here.
• dinifti [BSD | Mac, Linux | native] – The dinifti program converts MRI images stored in DICOM format to NIfTI format.
• DVTk – DICOM Validation Toolkit [LGPL | Windows | native] – The DVTk project creates different tools that will assist in the development, testing and servicing of Medical Interfaces such as DICOM and HL7.
  Useful : “Mastering DICOM with DVTk” [2007] by Potter et al.
• GDCM (Grassroots DiCoM) [BSD-like license | multi-platform | native] – Gdcm is yet another C++ library dedicated to reading/parsing and writing Dicom medical files.
• niftilib [public domain | multi-platform | native] – Niftilib is a set of i/o libraries for reading and writing files in the nifti-1 data format. nifti-1 is a binary file format for storing medical image data, e.g. magnetic resonance image (MRI) and functional MRI (fMRI) brain images. Niftilib currently has C, Java, MATLAB, and Python libraries. It is planned to add some MATLAB/mex interfaces to the C library in the future.
• openDICOM.NET [GPL, LGPL | Windows, Linux | native] – DICOM library, console tools, DICOM viewer/browser for Mono/.NET and Beagle Desktop Search Plugin. The project supports ACR-NEMA and DICOM file formats and provides transcoding to XML. It is written in C#.
• Utilities for Patient Data Exchange (UPDE) [LGPL | Windows | native] – A parser for text files to use with some of the utilities provided by the DCMTK from Offis. The purpose is to provide a basic DICOM Modality Worklist Management SCP.

  Useful : “Evaluation of Open Source DICOM Frameworks” [2006] by Vázquez et al.

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DICOM Viewer / Server

• Aeskulap [unknown | Windows, Linux | native] – Aeskulap is a medical image viewer. It is able to load a series of special images stored in the DICOM format for review. Additionally Aeskulap is able to query and fetch DICOM images from archive nodes (also called PACS) over the network.
• CDMEDIC PACS WEB [ GPL | Linux | native, web-based] – Full featured free PACS based on ctn or dcm4chee, dcmtk and mysql.
• Conquest DICOM software [unknown | Windows, Linux | native] – Full featured DICOM server based on and heavily extending the public domain UCDMC DICOM code developed by Mark Oskin.
• ClearCanvas [BSD | Windows | native] – ClearCanvas is a company devoted to creating innovative open source healthcare IT applications. They offer on their homepage a PACS Workstation, a PACS Server, a RIS and a application framework and SDK on which all three applications are based upon. (to download executables registration is required)
• ImageJ [GPL/LGPL | Windows, Mac, Linux | native, web-based] – ImageJ is a public domain Java image processing program.
• Java Light PACS Viewer [GPL | multi-platform | native] – jlpv is a Java Light PACS Viewer application useful for review series or images from DICOM data retrieved from the DCM4CHEE PACS system. It also uses ImageJ as a rendering engine or viewer.
• Kradview [GPLv3 | Linux | native] – Kradview is a GPLed viewer of images obtained for some different sources: X-ray, NMR and DICOM-compatible imaging devices that runs on free operating systems. Its aim is a easy to use DICOM viewer with instant rendering of images, no matter the size and the zoom of the DICOM image. It covers the “let’s see the the X-ray image” need of the medical professional. Kradview as been developed in C and C++ using KDE libraries. The parsing, rendering, and processing routines has been developed in C, and the graphical interface has been developed in C++ and includes the former routines with “extern C” for fast use.
• OsiriX Imaging Software [GPL | Mac | native] – Open Source PACS Workstation and DICOM Viewer.
• OpenSourcePACS [LGPL | multi-platform | web-based] – OpenSourcePACS is a free, open source image referral, archiving, routing and viewing system. It adds functionality beyond conventional PACS by integrating wet read functions, implemented through DICOM Presentation State and Structured Reporting standards.
  Useful : “OpenSourcePACS: an extensible infrastructure for medical image management.” [2007] by Bui et al.
• OSPACS [Cranfield Open-Source License | Windows | native] – Open Source Picture Archiving and Communication System (OSPACS) for storing and displaying medical image files. This is currently been used by the Institute of Women’s Health (University College London) to archive ultrasound images from the UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening (UKCTOCS) and aims to store more than 100,000 DICOM files.
  Useful : “OSPACS: Ultrasound image management system” [2008] by Stott et al.
• PGCTN [GPL | Mac, Linux | web-based] – Pgctn is open source DICOM server/web-based viewing system. It is made by using PHP and javascript. Postgresql (also MySQL), CTN (also DCM4CHEE), DCMTK and other open source software are used for the back end. The feature is to improve using the AJAX.
• RT_Image [unkown | Windows | native] – A DICOM-compliant 3D image display, analysis, and segmentation package for incorporating molecular imaging data in radiation oncology
• Stratos viewer [GPL | multi-platform | web-based] – Stratos viewer is a web based utility to examine DICOM medical images through a Web browser.

Useful : “Open Source in Imaging Informatics” [2007] by Nagy, “Open source software, the future of medical imaging?” [2006] by Henriksen et al.

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Disaster/Disease Management

• Real-time Outbreak and Disease Surveillance (RODS) [GPL | multi-platform | web-based] – RODS (Real-time Outbreak and Disease Surveillance) is a real-time computer-based public health surveillance system initially developed at the RODS Laboratory, University of Pittsburgh for the early detection of disease outbreaks.
• Sahana [LGPL | multi-platform | web-based] – Sahana is a Free and Open Source Disaster Management system. It is a web based collaboration tool that addresses the common coordination problems during a disaster from finding missing people, managing aid, managing volunteers, tracking camps effectively between Government groups, the civil society (NGOs) and the victims themselves.
  Useful : “Sahana Publications, Presentations, and Research”
• TriSano [AGPLv3 | multi-platform | web-based] – TriSano™ is an open source, citizen-focused surveillance and outbreak management system for infectious disease, environmental hazards, and bioterrorism attacks. It allows local, state and federal entities to track, control and ultimately prevent illness and death.
• Zyxware Health Monitoring System [GPL | multi-platform | web-based] – ZyxwareHMS is a web based disease monitoring for monitoring diseases like chikungunya, malaria – reported by hospitals in a district, county, state or country. There is a reporting & analysis module and a GIS module which displays the data using google maps.

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Electronic Medical Record (EMR aka EPR aka EHR)

• CHITS [GPL, QPL | Windows, Linux | web-based] – The Community Health Information Tracking System (CHITS) is an extensible, modular, open source information system for rural health units (initially for the Philippines). It collects existing routine health data from vertical programs in the Field Health Service Information System (FHSIS) and integrates them into a unified, comprehensive computerized information system.
• ClearHealth [GPL | unknown | web-based] – ClearHealth is a next generation practice management and EMR. It supports Demographics, Scheduling, Full Medical Billing, Disease Management, Decision Support, EPrescribing, HL7, and Web Services.
• CottageMed™ [GPL | Windows, Mac, Linux | Filemaker based] – CottageMed™ is a FileMaker Pro application that is flexible, ruggedly dependable and HIPAA-secure Electronic Medical Records system (EMR) … with secure and wireless networking, PDA and multiple-office support, prescription writing and cross-platform. (Filemaker Pro is proprietary software)
• DHIS 2 [BSD | multi-platform | web-based] – The District Health Information System (DHIS) provides means for data entry, report generation, and analysis. It is part of a larger initiative for health care data in developing countries, called the Health Information System Programme (HISP).
• FFEHR [GPL | Windows, Linux | web-based] – FFEHR is the temporary project name of a software application commissioned by the ASEAN +3 node of the UNDP’s International Open Source Network (UNDP-IOSN) for eventual use as an electronic health record for the healthcare industry. The initial goal of the project is to be able to design a common user interface that is both effective and efficient, and widely acceptable to medical practitioners in the Philippines and in the future, worldwide.
• HOSxP [GPL | Windows | native, web-based] – HOSxP is client/server hospital information system using in 150 hospitals in Thailand. HOSxP has many modules which keep data of Patient Image, Symptoms, Physical Condition, Investigation, Diagnosis, Treatment including Procedure / Medication, etc.
• IndivoHealth [LGPL | multi-platform | native, web-based] – Indivo is a distributed, web-based, personally controlled health record system that is accessible to the nomadic user and built to public standards. The Indivo project includes a pluggable web services API, web-based UI, data subscription framework, etc.
  Useful : “Indivo: a personally controlled health record for health information exchange and communication” [2007] by Mandl et al.
• MedClipse [CPL | multi-platform | native] – MedClipse will be an open-source Electronic Medical Record (EMR) software for the swiss general practionner. It will implement things such as agenda, billing (tarmed), medical and administrative data management, prescriptions, referals and other tools.
• Medical [GPL | Linux | web-based] – Medical is an highly scalable EMR / Hospital Information System (HIS) for OpenERP. It uses industry standards, such WHO ICD-10. The goal is to provide a universal EMR / HIS, where developing countries can also benefit.
• Med’In Tux [CeCILL | Windows, Mac, Linux | native] – MedinTux is a powerful medical software, multiuser (using MySQL for data storage), easy-to-use (thanks to Qt development toolkit), complete, working from the GP to the hospital. Its unique design makes it the most customisable software you can dream of.
• MirrorMed [GPL | Linux | web-based] – MirrorMed is a next-generation PHP-based EHR and practice management system.
• OpenEMR [GPL | Mac, Linux | web-based] – OpenEMR is the complete, user-friendly and affordable electronic medical record system. It is fully compliant with HIPAA and industry standards.
• OpenMRS [OpenMRS Public License | Windows, Mac, Linux | web-based] – OpenMRS is a community-developed, open-source, enterprise electronic medical record system framework intended to aid resource-constrained healthcare environments.
  Useful : “Cooking Up An Open Source EMR For Developing Countries: OpenMRS – A Recipe For Successful Collaboration” [2006] by Mamlin et al.
• OpenVista [AGPL | multi-platform | web-based] – OpenVista is a cost-effective, open, trusted and complete EHR which enhances patient safety, increases clinical and operational efficiency and provides an opportunity to improve quality of care delivery.
• OSCARMcMaster [GPL | multi-platform | web-based] – OSCAR (Open Source Clinical Application and Resource) from McMaster University is a web-based EMR (electronic medical record) system developed for academic primary care clinics yet suitable in specialty and non-teaching practices.
• PatientOS [GPL | multi-platform | native] – PatientOS has been designed from the outset to be a Healthcare Information System (HIS). The software architecture, design patterns and framework has been built for the complexities and challenges of an enterprise wide information system.
• Tolven Health Record [LGPL | multi-platform | web-based] – The Tolven platform and ePHR and eCHR applications enable interoperability across electronic health records for consumers and clinicians. Using Java 5, EJB3, Faces, Facelets, AJAX, relational database, and LDAP for security.
• Ultimate EMR [GPL | Windows, Linux | web-based] – A feature rich Open Source Core Electronic Medical Record for small medical providers developed with Plone/ Python/ Zope. Core EMR functionalities: Patient History, Past Visits, Rx, Health Maint., Allergies, Labs, Vitals, Notes, and Procedures.
• WorldVistA [GPL | Linux, Windows | native] – WorldVistA EHR is based on the highly acclaimed VistA system of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

Useful : “Open-Source EHR Systems for Ambulatory Care: A Market Assessment” [2008] by the California HealthCare Foundation.

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HL7 Tool(kit)

• HAPI [GPL, MGPL | multi-platform | native] – HAPI (HL7 application programming interface; pronounced “happy”) is a Java-based HL7 2.x parser with support for traditional (ER7) and XML encoding.
• HL7v3 Test Harness [GPL | Windows | native] – The HL7 Test Harness system is an HL7 v3 message conformance testing application that also provides the ability to simulate the message processing actions of a client and/or server system. The application provides message workflow, format and content testing.
• NHapi [MPL | multi-platform | native] – .Net version of HAPI Object oriented HL7 2.X parser. HL7 parser/encoder written in Microsoft .Net C#. Can encode/decode both XML and Pipe Delmimited formats.
• Perl HL7 Toolkit [GPL | multi-platform | native, web-based] – The HL7 toolkit provides a lightweight Perl API for manipulating, sending and receiving HL7 messages, an implementation of a forking HL7 server and an HL7 queue daemon.
• QuickViewHL7 [AFL | Windows | native] – HL7 file viewer, in tree-view format, with associated segment/field documentation. Basic usage is for testing and bug-tracing HL7 communications applications. Needs .Net Framework 2.0 to run.
• Ruby HL7 [BSD license | multi-platform | web-based] – Ruby HL7 is a simple library for parsing and generating HL7 2.x messages. 3.x support is planned in the future.

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Homeopathy

• OpenRep FREE [GPL | multi-platform | native] – OpenRep is a Java desktop application designed to serve as a homeopathic software with capabilities to open and use multiple repertories, perform repertorizations and view its results, manage patients and view different materia medicae. It is also designed to save and load data in human readable xml format.

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Hospital Management

• CARE2X [GPL | Windows, Mac, Linux | web-based] – Care2x integrates data, functions and workflows in a healthcare environment (Hospital/Healthservice Information System, Practice management, Central Data Server, Health Xchange Protocol).
• Hospital OS [GPL | Windows, Linux | native] – Hospital OS is a hospital information system for small-sized hospitals (100 beds or less, 200 out-patients per day or less). Hospital OS was developed for the healthcare system of Thailand targeting its small community hospitals nation-wide.
• Mediboard [GPL | multi-platform | web-based] – Mediboard is a web based open source system to manage Healthcare structures. The system is based on a web multi-layers architecture to manage various interconnected modules, using PHP, XML, XHTML, Javascript, CSS, Smarty and PEAR.
• Open Hospital [GPL | multi-platform | unkown] – Open Hospital – Hospital Information System for Angal – Uganda. Patient management, pharmacy, laboratotry, pregnancy and malnutrition control management. Developed by Informatici Senza Frontiere.
• OpenMEDIS [GPL | multi-platform | web-based] – OpenMEDIS is a simple, flexible, and standardized tool to collect (inventory) and process (manage) information on health technology infrastructure, e.g. medical devices in low- and middle income countries.
• TurnHos [GPL | multi-platform | web-based] – TurnHos is based on the system Care2x, integrates data, functions and workflow in an environment of health care, in addition to the administration schedule, print appointments and admission of patients.

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Integration Tool(kit) / Middleware

• Bots [GPL | multi-platform | native] – Bots for the translations and communication needed in Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). Bots has three main functions: “Any-to-any-format” data conversions, (Secure) communications and manage and overview EDI data flows.
• Chiapas [project specific license | Windows | native] – Chiapas is an enterprise level HIPAA data translation package. It supports all major healthcare transactions and a variety of SQL databases and file types, and incorporates a script parser and a GUI studio for development and maintaining specifications.
• Dataserver [LGPL | multi-platform | native, web-based] – DataServer is an open source XML gateway, specially tailored for the medical domain. DataServer is middleware, situated between clients and traditional Health Information Systems (HIS), Radiology Information Systems (RIS) and Picture Archive and Communication Systems (PACS). It supports relational (SQL), SOAP, and HTTP data sources out of the box, but is highly extensible for custom types.
• Laika [Apache License | Windows, Linux | unkown] – Laika analyzes and reports on the interoperability capabilities of EHR systems. This includes the testing for certification of EHR software products and networks.
• Mergence [GPL | multi-platform | native] – Mergence is a high performance, open source HL7 integration engine and application platform.
• mirth [MPL | unknown | web-based] – Mirth is an open source cross-platform HL7 interface engine that enables bi-directional sending of HL7 messages between systems and applications over multiple transports.

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Laboratory

• Bika LIMS [GPL | multi-platform | web-based] – Bika combines web content management and workflow processing for a one-stop web-based Laboratory Information Management System.
• OpenELIS [UIRF Open Source Based Public Software License | multi-platform | web-based] – OpenELIS is a robust Enterprise Laboratory Information System built around an extensible and scalable framework. OpenELIS is designed and developed through the collaborative efforts of Public Health Laboratories to accommodate business processes that are common to all public health laboratories; encompassing clinical, environmental, newborn screening, and animal testing. The goal of the OpenELIS team is to develop a state of the art system that is economically sustainable by reducing both initial investment and ongoing maintenance costs.
• YaNuCa [GPL | multi-platform | web-based] – YaNuCa (Yet Another Nutrition Calculator) is a web-based calculator for enteral and parenteral nutrition in adult intensive care patients. YaNuCa is a JavaScript program using a compact xHTML form as front end, which can easily be used with any JavaScript 1.2+ capable graphical web browser.

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Practice Management

• eleMental Clinic [GPL | Mac, Linux | web-based] – eleMental Clinic is an Open Source medical records management system for mental health professionals.
• Elexis Praxisprogramm [EPL | multi-platform | native] – An Eclipse RCP program for all aspects of a medical practice: EMR, laboratory findings etc., as well as accounting, billing (Swiss TARMED-System, other systems to be developped) and other daily work.
• FreeMED [LGPL | Linux | web-based] – Electronic Medical Record and Practice Management system for medical providers that runs in any Web browser in multiple languages. It provides an XML-RPC backend and multiple import and export formats, as well as reporting and other features.
• Freemed-YiRC [GPL | Linux | web-based] – Freemed-YiRC is a software project which aims to provide a product capable of providing Child Caring agencies/Youth in Residential Care (YiRC) agencies/Foster Care agencies with a fully functional internal case management/information system.
• GNUmed [GPL | Windows, Mac, Linux | native] – GNUmed is a medical practice management software
• OpenTAPAS [GPL | multi-platform | native] – Technology Assisted Practice Application Suite (TAPAS) is a term that describes digital tools that assist physicians deliver care in a paper based office. OpenTAPAS builds upon the HL7 compliant Electronic Medical Summary Standard.
• Res Medicinae [GPL | multi-platform | web-based] – Res Medicinae is the attempt to overcome high pricing in the realm of medical information systems and to provide users with a stable, platform independent, extensive system using latest technology and being open to many other medical systems.
• SQL Clinic [unknown | multi-platform | web-based] – SQL Clinic is a clinical database/web application for psychiatric providers in the United States. It is written in perl and runs on the GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X and Win32 platforms. It supports three databases: Postgres, MySQL and Oracle (probably inactive, last news/releases 03/2006).

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Radiology

• MARiS [GPL | multi-platform | web-base] – The MARiS Project goal is to realize a package suite for Radiological Workflow using Open Source tools and technologies in according with IHE guidelines. The architecture of the single packages is based on the concept of IHE actor: this is very useful to develope a system that is an ensamble of single pieces that cooperate together using IHE profiles.

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Signal Processing

• BioSig [GPL | multi-platform | native] – BIOSIG is an open source software library for biomedical signal processing. Library works well with Octave and Matlab. Special emphasis is put on EEG/MEG/ECoG, but also other types of biosignals like ECG, EMG, etc. are supported.
• FSL [FMRIB | Windows, Mac, Linux | native] – FMRIB Software Library (FSL) is a comprehensive library of analysis tools for FMRI, MRI and DTI brain imaging data. FSL is written mainly by members of the Analysis Group, FMRIB, Oxford, UK. FSL runs on Apple and PCs (Linux and Windows), and is very easy to install. Most of the tools can be run both from the command line and as GUIs (”point-and-click” graphical user interfaces).
  Part of FSL is FSLView, a viewer for (f)MRI and DTI data.
• Octave [GPL | multi-platform | native] – GNU Octave is a high-level language, primarily intended for numerical computations. It provides a convenient command line interface for solving linear and nonlinear problems numerically, and for performing other numerical experiments using a language that is mostly compatible with Matlab. It may also be used as a batch-oriented language.
• Lipsia [GPL | Linux | native] – Leipzig Image Processing and Statistical Inference Algorithms (Lipsia) is a software tool for processing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. It was developed over the course of several years at the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany.
• ODIN [GPL | multi-platform | native] – ODIN is a free software framework for rapid prototyping of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sequences. The sequences can be tested, simulated and executed on scanner hardware from different manufacturers.
• PyMVPA [MIT | multi-platform | native] – PyMVPA is a Python module intended to ease pattern classification analyses of large datasets. In the neuroimaging contexts such analysis techniques are also known as decoding or MVPA analysis. PyMVPA provides high-level abstraction of typical processing steps and a number of implementations of some popular algorithms. While it is not limited to the neuroimaging domain, it is eminently suited for such datasets. PyMVPA is truly free software (in every respect) and additionally requires nothing but free-software to run.

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Telemedicine

• IPath [GPL | multi-platform | web-based] – iPath is providing a free and open platform for many kind of telemedical applications. iPath-Server, provides a sort of medical BBS to discuss/consult online. Additional modules can be added, e.g. iPath-Microscope for real time telemicroscopy.
• Xebra [GPL | multi-platform | web-based] – Xebra is an open source platform for web-based distribution and clinical review of medical imaging results. Xebra is based on the latest open industry standards including JPEG2000, WADO and IHE XDS-I. The software provides healthcare organizations and software developers with all the necessary components to securely transmit and review medical images over a network such as the Internet.

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Veterinary Medicine

• Animal Shelter Manager [GPL | Windows, Mac, Linux | native] – Animal Shelter Manager is designed to take most (if not all) of the paperwork away from running an animal shelter/sanctuary. The system can also be used to manage a veterinary surgery or clinic.
• GnuVet [GPL | Linux | native] – GnuVet is a Veterinary Practice Management program for management, documentation, accounting etc. in the veterinary practice. Easy to use, intuitive structure. MySQL database as storage engine.

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Visualization

• 3D Slicer [BSD-like license | Windows, Mac, Linux | native] – The 3D Slicer uniquely integrates several facets of image-guided medicine into a single environment. It provides capabilities for automatic registration (aligning data sets), semi-automatic segmentation (extracting structures such as vessels and tumors from the data), generation of 3D surface models (for viewing the segmented structures), 3D visualization, and quantitative analysis (measuring distances, angles, surface areas, and volumes) of various medical scans.
• AMIDE [GPL | Windows, Mac, Linux | native] – Amide (Amide’s a Medical Image Data Examiner) is a tool for viewing, registering, and analyzing anatomical and functional volumetric medical imaging data sets. It imports most clinical DICOM files (using the DCMTK library).
• BioImageXD [GPL | Windows, Mac, Linux | native] – BioImageXD is a free open source software for analysis, processing and 3D rendering of multi dimensional, multi data channel, time series image data from microscopy and other sources.
• BrainStorm [GPL | Matlab | native] BrainStorm is an integrated free Matlab toolkit dedicated to Magnetoencephalography (MEG) and Electroencephalography (EEG) data visualization and processing. Our intention is to make a comprehensive set of tools available to the scientific community involved in MEG/EEG experimental research. (Matlab is proprietary software)
• BrainVISA [CeCILL license, GPL | Windows, Mac, Linux | native] – BrainVISA is a software, which embodies an image processing factory. It is distributed with a toolbox of building blocks dedicated to the segmentation of T1-weighted MR images. (last news or releases older than a year)
• CTSim [GPL | Windows, Linux | native] – CTSim simulates the process of transmitting X-rays through phantom objects. These X-ray data are called projections. CTSim reconstructs the original phantom image from the projections using a variety of algorithms. Additionally, CTSim has a wide array of image analysis and image processing functions.
• DeVIDE [BSD | Windows, Linux | native] – DeVIDE, or the Delft Visualisation and Image processing Development Environment, is a cross-platform software framework for the rapid prototyping, testing and deployment of visualisation and image processing algorithms. The software was developed within the Visualisation group. DeVIDE’s primary (and currently only) front-end is a data-flow boxes-and-lines network editor. In this regard, it is very similar to AVS, OpenDX, Khoros or VISSION. DeVIDE integrates functionality from libraries such as VTK, ITK, GDCM, DCMTK, numpy and matplotlib. It is being very actively developed.
• Drishti [GPL | Windows, Mac, Linux | native] – Drishti (meaning “vision” or “insight” in Sanskrit) is a multi-platform, open-source Volume Exploration and Presentation Tool. It was written for visualizing tomography data, electron-microscopy data and so forth.
• Endrov [BSD license | multi-platform | native] – Endrov is an open-source plugin architecture aimed for image analysis and data processing.
• Gwyddion [GPL | Windows, Mac, Linux | native] – Gwyddion is a modular program for SPM (scanning probe microscopy) data visualization and analysis. Primarily it is intended for analysis of height fields obtained by means of scanning probe microscopy techniques (AFM, MFM, STM, SNOM/NSOM), however it can be generally used for any other height field and image analysis.
• ITK [BSD-like license | multi-platform | native] – ITK is an open-source software toolkit for performing registration and segmentation.
• ITK-SNAP [unknown | Windows, Mac, Linux | native] – ITK-SNAP is a tool for segmenting anatomical structures in medical images. It provides an automatic active contour segmentation pipeline, along with supporting manual segmentation toolbox. ITK-SNAP has a full-featured UI aimed at clinical researchers.
• MITK [BSD-like license | multi-platform | native] – The Medical Imaging Interaction Toolkit (MITK) is a free open-source software system for development of interactive medical image processing software. MITK combines the Insight Toolkit (ITK) and the Visualization Toolkit (VTK) with PIC-based libraries of the DKFZ. As a toolkit, MITK offers those features that are relevant for the development of interactive medical imaging software covered neither by ITK nor VTK.
• Ogles [GPL | multi-platform | native] – Ogles is slice data visualization tool based on OpenGL. Ogles started out as a planning system for frame based stereotactic neurosurgery. Current development targets at a framework for neuroanalysis. A simple DICOM reader (SDR) is part of the project.
• OpenMS [LGPL | Windows, Mac, Linux | native] – An open source framework for LC-MS based proteomics. OpenMS offers datastructures and algorithms for the processing of mass spectrometry data. The library is written in C++.
  Useful : “OpenMS – An open-source software framework for mass spectrometry” [2008] by Sturm et al.
• ParaView [BSD-like license | Windows, Mac, Linux | native] – ParaView is an open source, freely available program for parallel, interactive, scientific visualization.
• TEMPO [GPL | multi-platform | native] – TEMPO (Topographic Eeg Mapping PrOgram) is open source software for 3D visualization of brain electrical activity. TEMPO accepts EEG file in standard EDF format and creates animated sequence of topographic maps.
• VTK [BSD-like license | multi-platform | native] – The Visualization ToolKit (VTK) is an open source, freely available software system for 3D computer graphics, image processing, and visualization.
• Voreen [GPL | Windows, Mac, Linux | native] – The goal of the Voreen project is to develop an open source volume rendering engine which allows interactive visualization of volumetric data sets by allowing high flexibility when integrating new visualization techniques.
• (X)MedCon [LGPL | Windows, Mac, Linux | native] – XMedCon is a medical image conversion utility and library; hereby hoping to lower at least one barrier in medical research projects. The supported formats are: Acr/Nema 2.0, Analyze (SPM), Concorde/µPET, DICOM 3.0, CTI ECAT 6/7, NIfTI-1, InterFile3.3 and PNG or Gif87a/89a.

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Other

• Debian-Med [various | Linux | non-applicable] – Debian-Med is a “Custom Debian Distribution” with the aim to develop Debian into an operating system that is particularly well fit for the requirements for medical practice and research. The goal of Debian-Med is a complete system for all tasks in medical care which is built completely on free software. Talks and further info about Debian-Med can be found here. There is also a Wiki available.
• EGADSS Decision Support System – Evidence-based Guideline and Decision Support System. Provides patient specific point of care reminders in order to aid physicians provide high quality care. Input/output in the form of HL7 CDA Level 2 documents. Knowledge is encoded using Arden Syntax.
• iHRIS Software Suite [GPL | Windows, Linux | web-based] – The Capacity Project is developing three free and Open Source core software solutions, each addressing a specific human resources for health (HRH) leadership issue. iHRIS Qualify: a training and licensure tracking database for Linux servers. iHRIS Manage: a human resources management system for Linux servers. iHRIS Plan: workforce planning and modeling software for Linux servers. Offline iHRIS: Windows desktop version of all three components of the iHRIS Suite.
• Linux For Clinics [GPL | Linux | non-applicable] – The Goal of Linux For Clinics is to create a free medically-themed linux distribution combining the work of Debian-Med with the release schedule and support of Ubuntu. They also have a Blog.
• Open eHealth Foundation – Agfa HealthCare, InterComponentWare (ICW), and Sun Microsystems Inc. have joined as foundation members the new Open eHealth Foundation. The Open eHealth Foundation will provide software components under an Open Source license that will boost the open standards-based exchange of medical information.
• OpenEMPI – OpenEMPI seeks to provide an open community towards development and critical evaluation of open source solutions for use as a community or enterprise master patient index (”MPI”).
• Open Healthcare Framework – The Eclipse Open Healthcare Framework (OHF) is a project within Eclipse formed for the purpose of expediting healthcare informatics technology. The project is composed of extensible frameworks and tools which emphasize the use of existing and emerging standards in order to encourage interoperable open source infrastructure, thereby lowering integration barriers.
• Open Health Tools – Open Health Tools is an open source community with a vision of enabling a ubiquitous ecosystem where members of the Health and IT professions can collaborate to build 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.
• OpenMedSpel [GPL | multi-platform | native] – OpenMedSpel is a free and open source USA English medical spelling word list.

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Standards

• CEN Technical Committee 251 – Health Informatics – CEN/TC 251 is the body within Europe mandated to develop standards for Health Informatics. (Useful: EN13606-1 documents)
• DICOM – Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine. (Useful: DICOM 3 standard definition of 2007)
• Foundational Model of Anatomy – The Foundational Model of Anatomy Ontology (FMA) is an evolving computer-based knowledge source for biomedical informatics; it is concerned with the representation of classes or types and relationships necessary for the symbolic representation of the phenotypic structure of the human body in a form that is understandable to humans and is also navigable, parseable and interpretable by machine-based systems. Specifically, the FMA is a domain ontology that represents a coherent body of explicit declarative knowledge about human anatomy. Its ontological framework can be applied and extended to all other species. It can be browsed via the Foundational Model Explorer.
• HL7 – Framework and related standards for the exchange, integration, sharing and retrieval of electronic health information.
• HXP – HXP is a standard data exchange protocol that could be used by healthcare applications to communicate transparently with each other regardless of their platforms. It is a protocol for making and receiving procedure calls over the internet and thus allow reception and transmission of data among remote healthcare applications.
• IHE – IHE is an initiative by healthcare professionals and industry to improve the way computer systems in healthcare share information. IHE promotes the coordinates use of established standards such as DICOM and HL7 to address specific clinical need in support of optimal patient care. Systems developed in accordance with IHE communicate with one another better, are easier to implement, and enable care providers to use information more effectively. (Useful: IHE Technical Frameworks and Integration Profiles)
• ISO Technical Commitee 215 – Health informatics – Standardization in the field of information for health, and Health Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to achieve compatibility and interoperability between independent systems. Also, to ensure compatibility of data for comparative statistical purposes (e.g. classifications), and to reduce duplication of effort and redundancies.
• OMG Healthcare DTF – The OMG Healthcare Domain Task Force is actively engaged as part of a joint collaboration with the Health Level 7 (HL7) Standards Group in producing industry healthcare SOA standards.
• openEHR – openEHR is about enabling ICT to effectively support healthcare, medical research and related areas. The openEHR endeavour is about creating specifications, open source software and tools in the technical space for such a platform. In the clinical space, it is about creating high-quality, re-usable clinical models of content and process – known as archetypes – along with formal interfaces to terminology. There are various reference implementations available (Java, Python – OSHIP).
• openGALEN – The GALEN CORE Model for representation of the Common Reference Model for Procedures contains the building blocks for defining procedures – the anatomy, surgical deeds, diseases, and their modifiers used in the definitions of surgical procedures. The ontology for the GALEN CORE Model is designed to be re-usable and application independent. It is intended to serve not only for the classification of surgical procedures but also for a wide variety of other applications – electronic healthcare records (EHCRs), clinical user interfaces, decision support systems, knowledge access systems, and natural language processing. The ontology is constructed according to carefully selected principles so that the reasons for classification are always explicit within the model and therefore available for processing and analysis by each application. This leads to an ontology in which most information lies in the descriptions and definitions. The hierarchies are built bottom-up automatically based on these definitions. The GALEN CORE Model can be browsed via the OpenGALEN Browser.
• RadLex – A Lexicon for Uniform Indexing and Retrieval of Radiology Information Resources by the RSNA. It is an active, curated reference ontology for the domain of radiology and can be browsed via the RadLex Term Browser.

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Further Sources

• 50 Successful Open Source Projects That Are Changing Medicine at Nursing Assistant Guides
• AMIA Open Source Working Group of the AMIA
• Collaborations in Healthcare Open Source – Working Group of the EFMI
• DICOM introduction and free software
• EFMI LIFOSS Working Group of the EFMI
• idoimaging.com – Free DICOM and Medical Image Viewer / Converter Software, Open Source DICOM conversion
• IMIA Open Source Health Informatics Working Group of the IMIA
• LinuxMedNews (THE medical FOSS news site)
• List of open source healthcare software at en.wikipedia.org (most complete list)
• Medgpl Wiki at Scratchpad Wiki Labs
• Medical Science Apps. at freshmeat.net
• Medical Science Apps. at Open Source Observatory and Repository for European public administrations
• Medical Science Apps. at sourceforge.net
• Open Health Forge at Open Health Tools
• Open Source at OpenClinical
• Open Source Healthcare Applications List at Open Source Health Care Alliance (OSHCA)
• Open Source in der Medizinischen Informatik
• Open Source Software (OSS) – Kompetenzzentrum der Bundesverwaltung
• The Top 100 Open Source Software Tools for Medical Professionals at LiveSmarter

 

Reports & Initiatives

Open-Source EHR Systems for Ambulatory Care: A Market Assessment

Sujansky & Associates

January 2008

Open-source electronic health record (EHR) systems have proliferated in recent years. This executive summary presents the findings from an evaluation designed to determine whether these systems, commonly referred to as free and open-source software (FOSS), are suitable for ambulatory EHRs.

The authors investigated a number of FOSS EHR projects to assess their organizational structures, development communities, functional capabilities, and available implementation and support services. The evaluation also analyzed the potential advantages of FOSS EHR systems for physician practices, as well as the limitations and general challenges of this alternative approach to acquiring clinical information technology.

The summary findings, along with a series of appendices providing detailed assessments of each EHR system, background information, and resources, are available under Document Downloads below.

Document Downloads

Open-Source EHR Systems for Ambulatory Care: A Market Assessment (529K)

Appendix A to Open-Source EHR Summary: Research Methodology (20K)

Appendix B to Open-Source EHR Summary: General Concepts (674K)

Appendix C to Open-Source EHR Summary: Systems Reviewed in Detail (682K)

Appendix D to Open-Source EHR Summary: Other Noteworthy Systems (39K)

Appendix E to Open-Source EHR Summary: Benefits and Limitations of FOSS EHRs (32K)

Appendix F to Open-Source EHR Summary: Additional FOSS EHR Resources (17K)

Related CHCF Pages

Press Release 1/17/08

Leveraging Investments and Sharing Knowledge