I am pleased to announce that my colleague, Logan Thomison of OptumHealth Education and I will be presenting at the MedBiquitous Annual Conference 2009, April 28-30 in Baltimore, Maryland. We will be discussing our collaborative production of a full-featured eCME Web platform by integrating two leading open source applications. Here is the abstract that was accepted:
The Role of Open Source Web Technologies in Continuing Medical Education: A case study
The rapid emergence and evolution of open-source Web technologies are transforming the delivery and measurement of continuing medical education (CME). Today, healthcare organizations are able to leverage, customize, and integrate free, open source software applications to create innovative, collaborative learning environments that facilitate communication, collaboration, and the transfer of knowledge among healthcare professionals.
OptumHealth Education and DLC Solutions partnered together to create a full-featured Web platform for CME. The platform was designed to: 1) facilitate learning through access to learner-driven communication tools, SCORM-compliant courseware, and live activities; 2) streamline and reduce costs associated with CME program administration and data collection; and 3) conduct education outcomes studies by combining data from multiple public and proprietary sources. The Web platform was developed by integrating two industry-leading open source applications: Drupal and Moodle. Drupal is a comprehensive content management system with rich Web 2.0 features. Moodle is a SCORM-compliant, collaborative learning management system widely used by universities and associations.
This presentation will discuss the authors’ experience in the planning, development, and implementation of this open-source CME platform. Special attention will be given to describing the feature set, the benefits and limitations of the platform, and the integration of multiple data sources for outcomes analysis.
Related posts:
- Webcast: Open Source Web Technologies in Continuing Medical Education
- MedBiquitous Annual Conference Announced
- MedBiquitous Webcasts on Health Education Technologies Now Available
- Alliance for CME Presentation: The Emerging Role of Open Source, Web 2.0 Technologies in Continuing Medical Education
- User Roles in EthosCE: Built on the Power of Drupal and Moodle
Congratulations!
There was similar effort long time ago using LimeSurvey open source tool (previously called PHPSurveyor).
Findings of that effort was presented at the 8th World Congress on the Management of eBusiness:
Development and Example of a Web-Based Open Source Clinical Tool
I would be intereted in learning your findings of using Drupal and Moodle for this industry.
Happy to hear more open source tools being utilized
Below are addtional details of use of LimeSurvey/PHPSurveyor if you do not have access/subscription to IEEE site to get the full paper.
It is taken from WCMeB 2007 Conference Program
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Development and Example of a Web-Based Open Source Clinical Tool
Michael S. Orr (University of Toronto), Sharon E. Straus and Jayna Holroyd-Leduc (University of Calgary)
Urinary incontinence affects from 3% to 55% of the population, depending on the definition of
incontinence used and the age range studied . The prevalence is highest among older woman (17%-55%) and incontinence negatively impacts their quality of life. Holroyd-Leduc and Straus
(2004) recommend that physicians understand the causes and management options available
to their female patients with urinary incontinence. The objective was to develop an open source web-based clinical questionnaire tool that health care providers can use to manage urinary incontinence. The health care providers who would be using the tool were initially consulted for their requirements. Based on the users’ requirements the tool functions must deliver, collect, and provide questionnaire analysis. The clinical tool questionnaire was required to provide questionnaire design functionality along with the ability to collect demographic information and deliver validated urinary incontinence questionnaires, Incontinence Impact Questionnaire-7 and the Urogenital Distress Inventory-6. To develop the web-based prototype tool an open-source software questionnaire system entitled PHPSurveyor was used and custom developed administration and statistical functions were integrated into the clinical tool. One of the challenges to using open-source software is that the software can evolve and change during the life cycle of an application. During the development of the clinical management tool five releases of PHPSurveyor occurred. In order to cope with these changes, the clinical administration, statistical, questionnaire scoring, and graphical functions were developed to ensure minimum integration with PHPSurveyor. The clinical tool consisted of administration functions that could manage users, provide questionnaires to patients/participants, and trending of statistical and graphical questionnaire results for the health care provider. Once the clinical tool was developed, heuristic evaluation was conducted on the questionnaires and administration functions. A number of usability issues were uncovered in both the questionnaires and administration tools. Changes were made before a pilot study was done using volunteers. The tool was modified based on results from the pilot study. The developed urinary incontinence clinical management tool has been implemented in a generic way that allows for the addition of new questionnaires, different scoring methods for questionnaires, limited integration to PHPSurveyor, and a suite of clinical administration functions. The tool could be adapted to other clinical areas where questionnaires are used.