CSI and State of Utah team to deliver first open source infectious disease management system to meet CDC mandate PORTLAND, Ore., May 19
PORTLAND, Ore., May 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Collaborative Software Initiative
(CSI), the company that brings like-minded organizations together to work on
collaborative software at a fraction of the cost, today announced the release
of the first open source, web-based infectious disease reporting and
management system.
The system will both protect citizens and meet the requirements for the
Center for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) National Electronic
Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS). NEDSS is the infrastructure cornerstone
for the nation's Public Health Information Network (PHIN).
The disease reporting and management system, which is being piloted in
Utah, will be adaptable in all 50 states and available under an open source
license later this year. It is designed to support local health departments in
the early detection and investigation of individual cases and local clusters
of communicable disease, while simultaneously meeting the state and federal
needs of outbreak control, disease surveillance and epidemiologic research.
According to the December 2007 report from Trust for America's Health,
only eight states are currently fully prepared to protect the public from
disease, disasters and bio-terrorism. Existing NEDSS solutions are either too
expensive or outdated and don't meet the states' needs. CSI's open source
infectious disease reporting and management system, developed with the
collaborative software development model, is significantly less expensive and
meets all local, state, and federal requirements.
The collaborative software development model, based on a unique
combination of industry standards, open source business practices, and lean
software development techniques was chosen in order to bring multiple
stakeholders with a common need together.
"We are excited by the promise that this collaborative approach offers to
provide software that meets our needs," said Dr. Robert Rolfs, MD, State
Epidemiologist, State of Utah Department of Health. "It will really help us to
do our job of protecting people's health by detecting and preventing the
spread of communicable disease."
"The project is a perfect example of how collaboration in software can
have an impact on society -- in this case, we can help prevent the spread of
disease and improve quality of care for patients by developing a system that
works for everyone," said Stuart Cohen, CEO of CSI. "The State of Utah is
taking a necessary leadership role to begin the rollout of an infectious
disease reporting and management system for the 21st century. We are very
excited to enable that transition and to work with other states to deploy this
important system."
"Disease surveillance is a critical component of public health, it serves
to protect all of the citizens of our state on a daily basis. Through this
unique partnership and approach to developing a solid detection management
system, we believe we're serving our citizens' very best interests," said Jon
Huntsman, Utah's Governor. "We're looking forward to partnering with our
neighboring states to enable the same level of public health service across
state lines."
The project has more than 100 contributors with a core team of 15 members,
which includes doctors, nurses, and epidemiologists (subject matter experts)
and IT managers from across the state, and CSI program managers and
developers. It is being built with an open source software stack that includes
Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, PostgreSQL, Apache HTTP Server, Apache
Tomcat, Java and JRuby. The system and database resides and is maintained on
servers managed by the Utah Department of Technology Services on its secure
network, accessible by users in health departments across the state.
"The combination of Lean and open source allows us to provide high quality
software releases early and often and to involve all the major stakeholders in
the process," said Mike Herrick, program manager and project leader at CSI.
"We look forward to rolling this out and talking to other states about how to
implement it and improve the health and safety of their citizens."
About Collaborative Software Initiative
Collaborative Software Initiative (CSI) was founded in 2007 by Stuart
Cohen, a veteran IT executive and former chief executive officer at the Open
Source Development Labs. Cohen has partnered with Evan Bauer, financial
services technology veteran and former chief technology officer at Credit
Suisse, to bring together like-minded companies to build software applications
at half the cost of outsourcing. CSI introduces a market-changing process that
applies open source methodologies to building Collaborative Software --
software developed or acquired by a variety of companies at a fraction of
internal developer or outsourcing costs.
CSI engages the power of community to build project teams and provides the
central project management function for developing Collaborative Software,
including development, testing and support for the code. The CSI also offers
the software to a broader base of customers under the open source licensing or
Software as a Service (Saas) models.
For applications that don't enable competitive advantage or are associated
with non-value added activities such as compliance, Collaborative Software
empowers business managers to maintain individual control and direction over a
project while accelerating compliance, reducing costs and consolidating
project timelines. CSI delivers on this new promise of Collaborative Software
-- on time and on budget.
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