From a post by Lemoene to the Bika Health discussion group:

The conference was co-hosted and very well presented by Association of Public Health laboratories- APHL, the US government and the Vietnam Administration of HIV/AIDS Control. Please find Bika's presentation here

Objectively viewed there was a strong bias towards OS. To the converted all the discussion made perfect sense, for better balance a proprietary speaker or OS sceptic would've been meaningful. And would have provided a handy target for gripes with proprietary LIMS observed amongst delegates, most importantly vendor lock-in and failure, and high total cost of ownership due to excessive licensing

Paul Biondich of OpenMRS delivered a passionate call to OS but it needs remebered that OS is not taking all the pain out of software engineering. OpenMRS for instance still requires high skills levels that after years in Africa are still supplied externally. Bika addresses this  through a well contained easy to maintain LIMS

Regardless, feedback indicated that 80% of delegates found the OS sessions the best of the conference

A pragmatic EMR approach to watch is that of SmartCare, unfortunately no web profile yet and using Gates Foundation sponsored MS software but open sourced, applying per patient smart card technology in Zambia to overcome 5% nationwide Internet coverage

As far as OS goes, only Bika Health and OpenELIS are available, with some reservations raised by delegates returning from a local OpenELIS lab visit

There's a lot of work to be done, and no single LIMS will be able to handle it all. At Bika we are looking forward to work with OpenELIS on open interoperability standards, HL7 and instrument interfaces. We hope to have planted open source seeds with the more accommodating of the proprietary vendors present

Lessons learnt:

• Lab managers want SQL
  

• Awareness of the benefits of integrated web portal content and document management as part of LIMS remains low
  

• Ditto localisation. This gets muddy through - most technical support comes in English. Bika's easy translation and accessibility features position us very well
  

• The commercially unfamiliar Bika development stack is a draw back, please bear with me here

Bika's LIMSs are built in the web content management framework Plone, voted the best 2008 CMS by CMSWatch.com, regardless of being OS or proprietary , and used by many governments, universities and companies, including for health care. Plone.net lists them all

Bika and Plone are programmed in Python, an agile language trusted by Google and NASA. Its the seventh most popular programming language, had the largest increase in ratings of any language in 2007 and has become the de facto glue language at system level

Zope, also programmed in Python, provides Bika's robust application server layer inclusive of persistent object database engine. It has amongst its power users NATO, AARP, CBS and many in health care, listed here

• Inventory management - very well presented by USAID's dr Chana Rabiner as supply chain management  - was correctly identified as a high priority earlier. Bika 2 Inkosi's Suppliers, Products and Orders objects are already in place
• In the absence on connectivity at remote sites, there is a need for independent desktop installations for which Bika, running on its native database and preconfigured with set-up data, is very suitable. Some thought will have to be given to master DB synchronisation via CD or memory stick

Only $100k is required to successfully branch our mature and industry proven chemistry LIMS into the fully fledged Bika Health on SQL, HL7 and interfaced with essential instruments and inventory, after which it'll be freely available to all. No such luck and I am extending this request to all readers of this post. Free membership of the Bika Health Foundation included;-)

We currently have a funding application being considered by the ZA government's innovation fund which if it succeeds will cover some of the work. Bika Lab Systems offers to do the development at cost and maybe this is the time to try an on-line funding campaign through an established organisation like Fundable.org. Watch this space"

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