8th Annual Future of Open Source Survey - 2014

Black Duck Software and North Bridge Venture Partners just announced the results of their annual Future of Open Source Survey for 2014. A record-breaking 1,240 industry influencers took part in this year’s survey.

This year’s results point toward the increased strategic role that open source software (OSS) has in today’s enterprises, the crucial function OSS plays in developing new technologies, the growth of first-time developers within the OSS community, and the impact it has on daily life.

 
According to Lou Shipley, President and CEO, Black Duck. “Open source has proven its quality and security, and reached a point of widespread democratization and proliferation. In particular, the survey revealed the three industries expected to be impacted most by OSS are Education (76%), Government (67%), and Healthcare (45%).
 
Survey respondents further reported that the top ten areas where OSS will impact our everyday lives include: 

Education  Mobility  Web privacy/security  Home appliance  Wearable devices

Robotics  Entertainment  Automotive  Gaming  Monetary exchange/payments

 
When asked what OSS technologies were leading in industry, 63% cited cloud computing & virtualization, 57% said content management, 52% selected mobile technology, and 51% answered security.
 
Also, 56% of corporations expect to contribute to more open source projects in 2014, signaling a change in the way enterprises view open source. When asked why they engaged with OSS communities, cost reduction was still the top response (61%), but many corporations (45%) responded that they also did so to gain a competitive advantage.
 
The survey shows enterprises now organizing to contribute back more actively; as they realize the importance of open source innovation to jumpstart careers and kickstart projects,” said Michael Skok, general partner at North Bridge Venture Partners. "Further, more new areas like the Internet of Things (IoT), which requires interoperability and extensibility, can only be met by open source initiatives, hence the emergence of new communities such as the AllSeen Alliance."
 
Additional Findings

• 72 percent of respondents chose to use OSS because it provides stronger security than proprietary solutions.
• Building upon this, 80 percent of respondents reported choosing open source because of its quality over proprietary alternatives.
• 68 percent of respondents said that OSS helped improve efficiency and lower costs
• 55 percent also indicated that OSS helped create new products and services
• 50 percent of enterprises report openly contributing to and adopting open source.

To see the full results from the 8^th Annual Open Source Survey conducted by North Bridge and Black Duck, go to Slideshare and view their presentation on The Future of Open Source .
 
Overall, the future looks bright not just for open source software (OSS), but for all things 'open'.  Share your thoughts.

Another Look at Healthcare & Health Information Technology through 2040

The health care industry will continue to grow in importance, both in the U.S. and around the world over the next several decades. New technologies, in particular, will play a key role in dramatically changing the practice of medicine and improving people's health.

It is generally understood that the key health information technologies (HIT) to be deployed during this decade include Electronic Health Record (EHR), Personal Health Record (PHR), and Mobile Health (mHealth) apps - all ultimately interconnected via Health Information Exchange (HIE) networks.

While striving to achieve those objectives by 2020 will lay the foundation for dramatically improving healthcare across America, radical transformation of health care will start to come about in the decades to follow. The following are some of the emerging health information technologies that I predict will begin to be deployed by 2020 and will be used widely in the U.S. by 2040.

• Genomic Information Systems, BioRepositories, & Predictive Medicine modules integrated with EHR Systems
• Nanotechnology & Implantable Health IT Systems interfaced to EHR and PHR Systems
• Advanced User Interface Solutions, e.g. Wearable Systems, mHealth Apps, and Health eGaming Technologies
• Health Information Exchange (HIE) interfaced to networks serving other Industries/Sectors, e.g. Banking, Security, Manufacturing, Pharma, Retail, etc.
• Televideo & Home-Based TeleHealth solutions interconnecting patients with health care providers
• A wide range of many other smart devices interfaced to Health IT (HIT) systems, i.e. Internet of Things (IoT)
• Widespread 'Open Access' to Health Information and 'Open Data' by consumers, researchers, and healthcare providers
• Integrative Medicine information and software modules (e.g. acupuncture, chiropractic, herbal medicine) integrated into EHR/PHR systems
• Standardized public health information systems and health information exchange networks to help fight global pandemics and improve health around the world.
• Continuing shift to 'open' cloud computing enabling growth in data mining and data analytics by researchers and analysts across all segments of the healthcare sector.

It is time for the more forward thinking health IT executives, clinical informaticists, healthcare providers and consumers to begin thinking farther out and sharing their thoughts. What emerging technologies do you see widely deployed by 2040? Regenerative Medicine? Precision Medicine? ...

The following are some interesting excerpts from various strategic healthcare plans and reports produced by a number of public and private organization on the future of healthcare in America from 2020 through 2050: Almost 100 percent of Americans will have health coverage of some sort by 2020. About half of the the population will be covered by Medicare, Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Veterans Health and/or the Military Health systems. Most of the remaining population will purchase subsidized coverage through the new health insurance exchange (HIX) systems. The emphasis in health care will continue to shift to disease prevention and health promotion, and reinvigorating the public health system over the next several decades as the threats of global pandemics and bioterrorism increase. The emphasis on ambulatory care and long term geriatric care in the U.S. will continue to grow over the next several decades, along with the growth of home-based healthcare enabled by the growing use of telehealth technologies. Telemedicine and home-based healthcare will start to play a much bigger role over the next decade. New physician-to-physician and physician-to-patient communications and health care processes will have developed and been accepted. There will be a continuing shift to personalized health care. By 2020, patients will have become more empowered and involved in better managing their own health care using more sophisticated mobile health apps interconnected to electronic health record (EHR) systems via health information exchange (HIE) networks. Another way that technology will further empowers patients to take more control of their healthcare in partnership with their healthcare providers relates to the growing access by patients to a wide range of health information portals and resources available on the web. New wearable body sensors that capture continuous physiological data streams during daily routines--as opposed to discrete data captured at isolated moments in time--will provide clinicians with greater context and enable them to diagnose based on more robust evidence. Complete organ replacements grown from stem cells will become possible in the 2020-2030 timeframe leading to growth of a major new bio-industry. Regenerative medicine will become a reality as we continue the drive towards 'singularity'.

Health IT Strategies to Enable More Patient/Provider Collaboration in the 21st Century

In the 1970's, most healthcare organizations began the process of using mainframe computers to automate their business processes, e.g. payroll, accounting, logistics. In the 1980's, healthcare organizations began the process of automating selected clinical departmental business processes using mini-computers or servers, e.g. patient registration, pharmacy, laboratory, radiology. In the 1990's, new technologies enabled the development and merger of many of these departmental systems into more fully integrated, 1st generation hospital information systems, i.e. EHR/EMR systems.

In the first decade of the 21^st century, advances in telecommunications technologies enabled the development of more comprehensive, enterprise-wide health IT systems supporting hospitals and clinics across geographic regions. The focus also started to shift to start better meeting the information needs of patients. In this second decade of the 21^st century, we have seen the development and deployment of personal health record (PHR) systems and consumer health information portals. Advances in mobile technologies and social media have further speeded up the process of further engaging patients in their own healthcare.

The following are three strategies for the coming decade that we ought to be pursuing to further enhance patient/provider collaboration in the development of health IT solutions and clinical practices designed for the next generation.

Mobile Health Apps - Is there an easy-to-use Mobile Manager developer's tool  that has been developed that can be used to create simple mobile screens that connect to EHR/EMR/PHR systems and their data. With an easy-to-use Mobile Health (mHealth) tool we could train thousands of developers, clinicians, admin staff, and patients  to create a wide range of innovative mHealth apps. Of course we'd need an app store where you could go to share or download the apps, and a way to rank/rate the apps by the users so the best of them rise to the top. I know there are already some open source app development tools, but is there one specific to the mHealth arena?

Health Education & Training Video Channels – Similarly, is there a highly recommended YouTube Video Channel (s) on the web (or something like YouTube) where both patients and employees can go find out more about how to effectively use EHR/EMR/PHR systems? These would be short education and training videos that address a variety of scenarios patients and employees may face and how to find needed information or interact with health IT systems to solve their particular problems. The key would be to engage many tens of thousands of employees and patients to develop and share these short videos with others. Who knows better what is needed than the patients or healthcare providers themselves. Also, like the proposed Health app store mentioned above, as the video are posted to the video channel users should be able to rate the videos so that the best rise to the top and are highlighted.

We know health IT systems of the future need to be continually enhanced to include genomic information, predictive care software modules, and more. But these business process strategies outlined above may be just as important to the future of health IT systems and patient care than these planned technical enhancements EHR/EMR/PHR systems. The keys to these strategies, is the focus on empowering both patients and employees and making better use of existing technologies.

Give us your constructive feedback. Let us know about any mHealth app development tools or YouTube health IT education & training channels that you would highly recommend.