The Federal Health Architecture initiative in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Mayo Clinic will host the CONNECT Code-A-Thon to continue work on the CONNECT open source gateway software that aids in linking to the emerging nationwide health information network.
Software developers will convene Sept. 21-22 in Rochester, Minn., to fix bugs, improve code, enhance documentation and make other improvements to the application. CONNECT is downloadable networking software with three components:
* Gateway, which implements nationwide health information network specifications for secure data exchange over the Internet;
* Enterprise Service Platform, which enables an organization to plug practice management and electronic health records systems into a framework to communicate with the Gateway; and
* Universal Client Framework, a platform to develop end-user applications that support meaningful use in lieu of a full-blown EHR.
CONNECT includes one or more open source applications for each of the components, plus some private vendor tools such as IBM/Initiate Systems' master patient index software.
Information on the Code-A-Thon and CONNECT is available at connectopensource.org.
--Joseph Goedert
