OpenELIS named finalist for DIAL Open Source Center Catalytic Grant

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The OpenELIS Global team is a finalist for the Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) Open Source Center Catalytic Grant! The OSC grant program “offers financial support for free & open source software projects that support work at the nexus of humanitarian action, development and peace.” (DIAL OSC website)

OpenELIS Global submitted a proposal to add functionality that will support, amongst other goals, local and national clinical and surveillance response for COVID-19.

Winners will be announced in the coming weeks.

https://www.osc.dial.community/catalytic-grant-round-4.html

New Digital Group Offers Full Range of Digital Health Services

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In winter 2019, the International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH) launched a new unit: the Digital Initiatives Group at I-TECH (DIGI). The DIGI team builds upon 15 years of experience at I-TECH designing, developing, implementing, and evaluating health information systems (HIS) around the world.

The group — co-led by Dr. Nancy Puttkammer, Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Health, and Jan Flowers, Clinical Faculty and Director of Global Health Informatics in the Clinical Research Group (CRIG) — provides services to help programs scope and build technical solutions to manage program or clinical data.

“The shared faculty lead role helps the group leverage diverse resources from departments across the university,” said Joanna Diallo, DIGI Managing Director.

By promoting open-source “global goods” that are supported by implementer communities, DIGI helps partners such as Ministries of Health to be able to own and continue to develop long-term solutions.

In April, Flowers received a Digital Square award to lead an online community of practice on open-source lab information systems like OpenELIS, and Dr. Puttkammer received a Digital Square award to design and test practical and generalizable solutions for interoperability between OpenELIS and two other leading open source tools: OpenMRS and OpenLMIS.

DIGI partners with global communities to develop and enhance digital tools and provide technical assistance for effective implementation and sustainability. The team works closely with on-the-ground experts and stakeholders to guide and facilitate governance, capacity building, and continuous quality improvement using a maturity model lens.

DIGI works in the following technical areas:

  • Software Design & Development
  • Health Data Exchange Standards
  • Health Systems Architecture
  • Information Security
  • Evidence-Based Evaluation and Implementation
  • Digital Health Workforce Development

“With investment from the I-TECH center to launch DIGI, we have been able to approach the work in a new way that is flexible and responsive and promotes cross project sharing,” explained Dr. Puttkammer. “We hope this will continue to strengthen the department’s standing as a leader in digital health.”

DIGI Utilizing Digital SquareDIGI With I-TECH @ UW

OpenELIS Global Selected for Google’s Innovative Season of Docs Program

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DIGI Utilizing Digital Square

DIGI Utilizing Digital Square

Google has selected OpenELIS Global, a laboratory information system stewarded by the Digital Initiatives Group at I-TECH (DIGI), as a participant in the first year of its Season of Docs, a unique program that pairs technical writers with real-world open source projects. DIGI implements OpenELIS Global in Côte d’Ivoire and Haiti and manages contributions to the software as a part of the global developer community.

“We rely on talented contributors from the global health software community to ensure that our tools have the biggest impact and are available to the widest audience possible,” explained Casey Iiams-Hauser, Senior Digital Health Specialist with DIGI and the OpenELIS Global Product Owner. “By being transparent about our challenges and triumphs, we benefit from peer-to-peer sharing to problem solve for the benefit of the whole community.”

Technical writer Areesha Tariq was paired with the OpenELIS Global project as a part of the initiative. Based in Islamabad, Pakistan, Areesha has a background in software engineering and her writing focuses predominantly on user guides. She will work to improve OpenELIS Global end-user documentation by turning the current user manual into more pragmatic and accessible job aids.

Areesha is excited to join the team, saying, “I feel great to be selected as the technical writer for OpenELIS Global. It will be a new learning experience to work in an open-source community. I hope that I will be able to complete the project and continue working with the team so that I can contribute to a global cause.”

By participating in Google’s Season of Docs initiative, DIGI will not only benefit from Areesha’s contributions, it will also have the opportunity to increase awareness of OpenELIS Global in the global community by having our projects posted to the initiatives website and reviewed by a large number of technical writers, open source organizations, and contributors. “We are excited to be a part of Season of Docs,” said DIGI Managing Director, Joanna Diallo. “During the application process we met a number of highly qualified technical writers and observed a lot of interest in ‘global goods’ like OpenELIS.”

The idea for DIGI’s technical documentation project grew out of a proposal to PATH’s Digital Square project, which like Google’s Season of Docs, invests in critical technology that can be accessed worldwide. DIGI’s proposal was only partially funded by Digital Square to develop practical designs and generalizable approaches to achieve interoperability among open-source, clinic-level data management systems via the OpenHIE framework. These systems include OpenELIS Global; OpenLMIS, a laboratory management information system; and OpenMRS, an electronic medical records (EMR) system. However, the OpenELIS Global documentation scope of work remained unfunded.

“Having focused our thinking already on OpenELIS Globaldocumentation gaps for the Digital Square application allowed us to pull together our Season of Docs application quickly,” explained Diallo. “It was fortuitous timing – and it is inspiring to see both PATH and Google investing in open source organizations.”

I-TECH Participates in Google Season of Docs

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The Digital Initiatives Group at the International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH), a center in the University of Washington’s Department of Global Health, is participating in the Season of Docs, Google’s annual program that fosters collaboration between open source projects and technical writers. This is the inaugural year of this new program!

Season of Docs is a unique program that pairs technical writers with open source mentors to introduce the technical writer to an open source community and provide guidance while the writer works on a real-world open source project. The technical writer in turn provides documentation expertise to the open source organization. Season of Docs is not a recruiting program nor an internship but it does provide an invaluable experience and looks great on a résumé!

DIGI implements open-source digital health solutions that help people make informed decisions to improve health outcomes in low and middle-income countries such as Cote d’Ivoire, Haiti, Kenya, and South Africa. We work with electronic medical records, laboratory information systems, human resources information systems, and other digital health tools. Our work contributes to sustainable health systems and improved population health.

Technical writers interested in Season of Docs can find the list of participating open source organizations on the Season of Docs website. The application period for technical writers is open from May 29, 2019 – June 28, 2019. DIGI’s Ideas List is available here: https://sites.google.com/site/openelisglobal/blog

Have questions about Season of Docs? Email season-of-docs-support@googlegroups.com

Have questions about DIGI and I-TECH? Email: digit@uw.edu

Ideas List:

Project 1

  • Project name: OpenELIS documentation for software developers.
  • Description: We seek to strengthen documentation for software developers and implementers via updates including:
  • Orientation to the OpenELIS code base and database model;
  • Tutorial on setting up the OpenELIS development environment;
  • Repository of requirements and specification documents for existing features;
  • Documentation updates on all aspects of the technology overhaul currently underway to replace the Java framework, and to replace all end of life components as well as other security changes;
  • Tutorials on creating new analyzer plugins to the level that analyzer interfaces could be built by developers who are previously unfamiliar with OpenELIS;
  • Fully documented API available to help new parts of the health information ecosystem to easily interface with OpenELIS;
  • Updated coding style guide and conventions to outline the process of code integration from community members
  • Links to existing tutorials on development processes (ie: requirements gathering, user-centered design, testing) and laboratory services.

Project 2

Project name: OpenELIS documentation for laboratory personnel and software implementers.

Description: With the move from tailored forks of OpenELIS for each laboratory toward a unified software which is highly configurable, there is a need to guide implementers on the ways that OpenELIS can support varied and diverse lab workflows. Currently, it is difficult to understand the implications of each option and how they work together without prior experience configuring the system. Documentation of this system would unlock its potential for new implementers trying to get started. Specific improvements to implementer documentation include:

  • Building a repository for current SOPs for OpenELIS installation and administration;
  • Providing a comprehensive “Quick Start” guide for implementers, covering everything from procurement guidance to how to install the analyzer plugins;
  • Setting up a file section to host existing analyzer plugins, installers and other software needed for implementation, as a companion to the installer to setup the software;
  • Creating an interactive mechanism for implementers to share feedback and contribute new documentation and analyzer plugins.

Related material:

 

 

Project 3

Project name: OpenELIS documentation for end users.

Description: We seek to redesign and enhance user-facing documentation for OpenELIS. I-TECH intends to revolutionize the way that OpenELIS users obtain help based on their context-specific needs. Currently, instructions on using OpenELIS are contained in a single user manual that users can find tedious and time-consuming to navigate. Some users, particularly new ones, appreciate having access to a broad array of materials that they can browse and learn along the way. Other users, especially those who are more experienced and familiar with a specific digital product such as OpenELIS, will want to quickly locate and use a specific resource in order to complete a data entry or reporting task. Specific activities will include:

  • Converting the existing (out of date) User Manual into a comprehensive, up-to-date library of job aids and written tutorials on all current functionality (including newer functionality, such as test management, barcode scanning, batch entry, and analyzer results import), including metadata tags to help index the information;
  • Develop / Update an English version of the help materials
  • Providing users with access to a “Top 10” list of the most frequently accessed job aids.
  • Create a style guide and coding conventions document

Related material:

OpenELIS existing user guide:  This illustrates the existing user manual and the direction for the possible design of indexed, context-specific user documentation and help resources. https://demo.openelisci.org:8443/CDI_RegLabOpenElis/documentation/CI_Regional_fr.pdf