The open three consortium: An open-source initiative at the service of healthcare and inclusion

Abstract

The Higher Education in Clinical Engineering (HECE) of the University of Trieste constituted in 2005 the Open Three Consortium (O3), an innovative open-source project dealing with the multi-centric integration of hospitals, RHIOs (Regional health information organizations) and citizens (care at home and on the move, and ambient assisted living), based on about 60 HECE bilateral cooperation Agreements with Hospitals, Medical Research Centers, Healthcare Enterprises, Industrial Enterprises and Governmental Agencies and on the International Networks ABIC-BME (Adriatic Balcanic Ionian Cooperation on Biomedical Engineering) and ALADIN (Alpe Adria Initiative Universities' Network). The collaboration with multiple open-source solutions has been extended, starting an international cooperation with the open-source based company Sequence Managers Software, Raleigh, NC, United States. The O3 Consortium proposes e-inclusive citizen-centric solutions to cover the above reported three main aspects of the future of e-health in Europe with open-source strategies joined to full-service maintenance and management models. The Users' and Developers' O3 Consortium Communities are based mainly on the HECE agreements. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.