OStatic

Have you ever heard of EpiSurveyor? It's an open source tool designed to allow anyone in the world to create handheld data entry forms, use them to collect data on mobile devices, and transfer the data to other devices for analysis. Developed by Dr. Joel Selanikio (shown), it's widely used in public health efforts all around the world, for disease surveillance and collecting public health data. Today, the Lemelson-MIT Program has announced?that Selanikio is the recipient of its 2009 $100,000 Award for Sustainability for his contributions to public health. Here is what's significant about EpiSurveyor, and how there is room for open source apps like it.

BusinessWeek recently did an interesting article on a major shift in company strategy at telecom giant Vodafone, called Vodafone: Embracing Open Source with Open Arms. It focuses on how the company, following a string of huge acquisitions over the past few years, is looking away from doing more expensive deals and looking toward open source and crowdsourced strategies for introducing more innovative applications. From the conditions in the current economic environment to new opportunities on the mobile applications front, this makes a lot of sense, and more behemoth companies should be thnking this way. Here's why.

The Obama administration is committed to overhauling government spending on technology by adopting open source solutions, and healthcare professionals are increasingly heeding the call of open source. This week brings an important step in empowering healthcare IT organizations to tie into the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN), a federal initiative to facilitate the electronic exchange of health information. The open source inititiative is called Connect. It consists of open source software and accompanying documentation, available here. As Matt Asay notes, the goal is to reduce the cost and complexity of tying into the U.S. national health information network, with three of the largest federal healthcare provider organizations, Defense and Veterans Affairs departments plus the Indian Health Service, each participating in Connect.

Today, a Silicon Valley non-profit group called InSTEDD?(Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disasters) unveiled three new open source software tools targeted to help global humanitarian efforts. The group works with humanitarian organizations, local communities, and government ministries to improve disease detection and disaster response. Some of the tools are already in use in HIV clinics in Tanzania, centers for disease control in Kenya and Cambodia, and more. Here are the details on the tools, and how to get them.