igia: An Open-source Platform to Accelerate Innovation in Health Information Technology (Preprint)

Abstract

<sec> <title>BACKGROUND</title> While usage of EHRs has substantially increased over the past decade, building clinical applications remains challenging for multiple reasons, including security and privacy considerations, data integration, application distribution, and application deployment. </sec> <sec> <title>OBJECTIVE</title> We discuss the importance of platforms for health IT development, and specifically describe “igia,” an open-source collection of software packages that enable developers to build and deploy applications more efficiently. </sec> <sec> <title>METHODS</title> igia is an open-source collection of software packages and repositories that allow a healthcare application developer to develop and deploy EHR-linked applications more efficiently. </sec> <sec> <title>RESULTS</title> igia was built with several principles: first, it is open-source. Second, igia leverages best-practice solutions wherever possible. Third, it is designed to be used in operational, “clinically-ready” settings. Fourth, igia focuses on reusability and platform-level functionality, so that developers can focus on application development. Finally, igia leverages existing standards, to emphasize interoperability and health IT ecosystem integration. Features include a microservices architecture, SMART on FHIR, data integration, and care management modules. </sec> <sec> <title>CONCLUSIONS</title> Platforms could improve the efficiency of health IT software development. We describe “igia,” an open-source platform for building clinical applications. We hope that such a platform will reduce barriers to developing clinical applications by providing “out of the box” functionality for many common healthcare IT tasks. igia is released under an MPL v2.0 with code and documentation freely available on GitHub. </sec>

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