Using Open Source, Open Data, and Civic Technology to Address the COVID-19 Pandemic and Infodemic

Summary

Objectives: The emerging COVID-19 pandemic has caused one of the world’s worst health disasters compounded by social confusion with misinformation, the so-called “Infodemic”. In this paper, we discuss how open technology approaches - including data sharing, visualization, and tooling - can address the COVID-19 pandemic and infodemic.

Methods: In response to the call for participation in the 2020 International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) Yearbook theme issue on Medical Informatics and the Pandemic, the IMIA Open Source Working Group surveyed recent works related to the use of Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) for this pandemic.

Results: FLOSS health care projects including GNU Health, OpenMRS, DHIS2, and others, have responded from the early phase of this pandemic. Data related to COVID-19 have been published from health organizations all over the world. Civic Technology, and the collaborative work of FLOSS and open data groups were considered to support collective intelligence on approaches to managing the pandemic.

Conclusion: FLOSS and open data have been effectively used to contribute to managing the COVID-19 pandemic, and open approaches to collaboration can improve trust in data.

Keywords

COVID-19 - Public Health - Open data - Free/Libre/Open source software

Publication History

Article published online:
21 April 2021

• References

• 1 WHO Director-General’s opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 11 March 2020 [Internet]. [cited 2020 Jul 9]. Available from: https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---11-march-2020
• 2 WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Dashboard | WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Dashboard [Internet]. [cited 2020 Oct 4]. Available from: https://covid19.who.int/
• 3 Risk communication – A moving target in the fight against infectious hazards and epidemics. Wkly Epidemiol Rec 2016; 91 (07) 82-7
• 4 Chang A, Schnall AH, Law R, Bronstein AC, Marraffa JM, Spiller HA. et al. Cleaning and Disinfectant Chemical Exposures and Temporal Associations with COVID-19 - National Poison Data System, United States, January 1, 2020-March 31, 2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2020; 69 (16) 496-8
• 5 ITU: No scientific basis between 5G and COVID-19 [Internet]. [cited 2020 Jun 8]. Available from: https://www.itu.int/en/Pages/COVID-19/5g-covid-19-statement.aspx
• 6 Organization WH. Managing Epidemics (Key Facts About Major Deadly Diseases). 1^st ed. World Health Organization; 2018
• 7 The Lancet Infectious Diseases. The COVID-19 infodemic. Lancet Infect Dis 2020; 20 (08) 875
• 8 Pennycook G, McPhetres J, Zhang Y, Lu JG, Rand DG. Fighting COVID-19 Misinformation on Social Media: Experimental Evidence for a Scalable Accuracy-Nudge Intervention. Psychol Sci 2020; 31 (07) 770-80
• 9 Myth busters [Internet]. [cited 2020 Jun 10]. Available from: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/myth-busters
• 10 Islam MS, Sarkar T, Khan SH, Mostofa Kamal AH, Hasan SMM, Kabir A. et al. COVID-19-Related Infodemic and Its Impact on Public Health: A Global Social Media Analysis. Am J Trop Med Hyg 2020
• 11 Reducing Stigma | CDC [Internet]. [cited 2020 Jun 10]. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/reducing-stigma.html
• 12 Kobayashi S, Kane TB, Paton C. The privacy and security implications of open data in healthcare. Yearb Med Inform 2018; 27 (01) 41-7
• 13 Paton C, Kobayashi S. An open science approach to artificial intelligence in healthcare. Yearb Med Inform 2019; 28 (01) 47-51
• 14 Karopka T, Schmuhl H, Marcelo A, DalMolin J, Wright G. Towards Open Collaborative Health Informatics - The Role of Free/Libre Open Source Principles. Yearb Med Inform 2011; 20 (01) 63-72
• 15 Paton C, Karopka T. The role of free/libre and open source software in learning health systems. Yearb Med Inform 2017; 26 (01) 53-8
• 16 Kobayashi S, Yahata K, Goudge M, Okada M, Nakahara T, Ishihara K. Open source software in medicine and its implementation in Japan. Journal on Information Technology in Healthcare 2009; 7 (02) 95-101
• 17 GNU Health | Freedom and Equity in Healthcare [Internet]. [cited 2021 Jan 21]. Available from: https://www.gnuhealth.org/about-us.html
• 18 Dehnavieh R, Haghdoost A, Khosravi A, Hoseinabadi F, Rahimi H, Poursheikhali A. et al. The District Health Information System (DHIS2): A literature review and meta-synthesis of its strengths and operational challenges based on the experiences of 11 countries. Health Inf Manag 2019; 48 (02) 62-75
• 19 OpenMRS Annual Report 2019 - Community - OpenMRS Talk [Internet]. [cited 2020 Nov 2]. Available from: https://talk.openmrs.org/t/openmrs-annual-report-2019/27530
• 20 LIFE: Life-Saving Instruction for Emergencies Medical Simulation Training App – A simulation training app for emergency medicine and paediatrics [Internet]. [cited 2021 Jan 24]. Available from: https://oxlifeproject.org/
• 21 Noticia | Covid-19: [Follow-up of suspicious cases, through a computer module] seguimiento de casos sospechosos, a través de un módulo informático [Internet]. [cited 2020 Oct 12]. Available from: https://diamante.gob.ar/prensa/covid-19-seguimiento-de-casos-sospechosos-a-travs-de-un-mdulo-informtico-N5100
• 22 [Who are the 64 Argentine scientists chosen to finance their research on Covid-19] Quienes son los 64 científicos argentinos elegidos para financiar sus investigaciones sobre Covid-19 - Infobae [Internet]. [cited 2020 Oct 12]. Available from: https://www.infobae.com/coronavirus/2020/05/02/quienes-son-los-64-cientificos-argentinos-elegidos-para-financiar-sus-investigaciones-sobre-covid-19/
• 23 Tackling the Beast: Using GNU Health to help the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic – GFOSS – Open Technologies Alliance [Internet]. [cited 2020 Aug 31]. Available from: https://gfoss.eu/tackling-the-beast-using-gnu-health-to-help-the-fight-against-the-covid-19-pandemic/
• 24 The European Commission’s EUvsVirus Hackathon: The EUvsVirus Hackathon is a European Commission initiative that is open to EVERYONE AROUND THE WORLD on April 24-26. - Devpost [Internet]. [cited 2020 Oct 12]. Available from: https://eunitedvsvirus.devpost.com/
• 25 Mamlin BW, Biondich PG, Wolfe BA, Fraser H, Jazayeri D, Allen C. et al. Cooking up an open source EMR for developing countries: OpenMRS - a recipe for successful collaboration. AMIA Annu Symp Proc 2006; 529-33
• 26 Oza S, Jazayeri D, Teich JM, Ball E, Nankubuge PA, Rwebembera J. et al. Development and Deployment of the OpenMRS-Ebola Electronic Health Record System for an Ebola Treatment Center in Sierra Leone. J Med Internet Res 2017; 19 (08) e294
• 27 Kaphle S, Chaturvedi S, Chaudhuri I, Krishnan R, Lesh N. Adoption and Usage of mHealth Technology on Quality and Experience of Care Provided by Frontline Workers: Observations From Rural India. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth 2015; 3 (02) e61
• 28 MedicMobile Community Health Toolkit [Internet]. [cited 2020 Nov 5]. Available from: http://medicmobile.org/tools
• 29 Open Data Kit [Internet]. [cited 2020 Nov 2]. Available from: https://opendatakit.org/
• 30 Open Concept Lab’ ‘ [Internet]. [cited 2020 Nov 3]. Available from: https://digitalhealthatlas.org/en/-/projects/661/published
• 31 Baskaya M, Yuksel M, Erturkmen GBL, Cunningham M, Cunningham P. Health4Afrika - Implementing HL7 FHIR Based Interoperability. Stud Health Technol Inform 2019; 264: 20-4
• 32 Updating NepalEHR in response to COVID19 [Internet]. [cited 2020 Nov 3]. Available from: https://nepalehr.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/NEPALEHR/blog/2020/03/25/43090009/Updating+NepalEHR+in+response+to+COVID19
• 33 Muinga N, Paton C. Virtual reality for medical and nursing training in low- and middle-income countries. Pathways for Prosperity Commission Background Paper Series; 2019
• 34 Tuti T, Winters N, Edgcombe H, Muinga N, Wanyama C, English M. et al. Evaluation of Adaptive Feedback in a Smartphone-Based Game on Health Care Providers’ Learning Gain: Randomized Controlled Trial. J Med Internet Res 2020; 22 (07) e17100
• 35 Ferretti L, Wymant C, Kendall M, Zhao L, Nurtay A, Abeler-Dörner L. et al. Quantifying SARS-CoV-2 transmission suggests epidemic control with digital contact tracing. Science 2020;368(6491)
• 36 Show evidence that apps for COVID-19 contact-tracing are secure and effective. Nature 2020; 580 (7805): 563
• 37 Ethical considerations to guide the use of digital proximity tracking technologies for COVID-19 contact tracing [Internet]. [cited 2020 Jul 28]. Available from: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-2019-nCoV-Ethics_Contact_tracing_apps-2020.1
• 38 Covid-19Radar/Covid19Radar: Open Source/Internationalization/ iOS Android Cross Platform Contact Tracing App by exposure notification framework Xamarin App and Server Side Code [Internet]. [cited 2020 Aug 11]. Available from: https://github.com/Covid-19Radar/Covid19Radar
• 39 Reintjes R. Lessons in contact tracing from Germany. BMJ 2020; 25 (369): m2522
• 40 Li M, Leslie H, Qi B, Nan S, Feng H, Cai H. et al. Development of an openEHR Template for COVID-19 Based on Clinical Guidelines. J Med Internet Res 2020; 22 (06) e20239
• 41 The Open Data Handbook [Internet]. [cited 2020 Oct 21]. Available from: https://opendatahandbook.org/guide/en/
• 42 Martin EG, Begany GM. Opening government health data to the public: benefits, challenges, and lessons learned from early innovators. J Am Med Inform Assoc 2017; 24 (02) 345-51
• 43 Huston P, Edge VL, Bernier E. Reaping the benefits of Open Data in public health. Can Commun Dis Rep 2019; 45 (11) 252-6
• 44 D’Agostino M, Samuel NO, Sarol MJ, deCosio FG, Marti M, Luo T. et al. Open data and public health. Rev Panam Salud Publica 2018; 42: e66
• 45 Yozwiak NL, Schaffner SF, Sabeti PC. Data sharing: Make outbreak research open access. Nature 2015; 518 (7540): 477-9
• 46 Kieny MP, Moorthy V, Bagozzi D. Public health: Use open data to curb Zika virus. Nature 2016; 533 (7604): 469
• 47 Zhao L, Feng D, Ye RZ, Wang HT, Zhou YH, Wei JT. et al. Outbreak of COVID-19 and SARS in mainland China: a comparative study based on national surveillance data. BMJ Open 2020; 10 (10) e043411
• 48 Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 isolate Wuhan-Hu-1, co - Nucleotide - NCBI [Internet]. [cited 2020 Jul 8]. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/MN908947
• 49 Roser M, Ritchie H, Ortiz-Ospina E, Hasell J. Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) - Statistics and Research - Our World in Data. Our World in Data 2020
• 50 Open-Access Data and Computational Resources to Address COVID-19 | Data Science at NIH [Internet]. [cited 2021 Jan 24]. Available from: https://datascience.nih.gov/covid-19-open-access-resources
• 51 Dong E, Du H, Gardner L. An interactive web-based dashboard to track COVID-19 in real time. Lancet Infect Dis 2020; 20 (05) 533-4
• 52 Lin C, Braund WE, Auerbach J, Chou JH, Teng JH, Tu P. et al. Policy Decisions and Use of Information Technology to Fight COVID-19, Taiwan. Emerging Infect Dis 2020; 26 (07) 1506-12
• 53 Taiwan’s battle against coronavirus began in late 2019 - Nikkei Asian Review [Internet]. [cited 2020 Jul 13]. Available from: https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Taiwan-s-battle-against-coronavirus-began-in-late-2019
• 54 Singapore’s police now have access to contact tracing data | MIT Technology Review [Internet]. [cited 2021 Jan 20]. Available from: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/01/05/1015734/singapore-contact-tracing-police-data-covid/
• 55 TraceTogether [Internet]. [cited 2021 Jan 21]. Available from: https://www.tracetogether.gov.sg/common/privacystatement/
• 56 Reddick CG. editor Comparative E-Government. vol. 25. New York, NY: Springer; 2010
• 57 Yuan EJ, Hsu CA, Lee WC, Chen TJ, Chou LF, Hwang SJ. Where to buy face masks? Survey of applications using Taiwan’s open data in the time of coronavirus disease 2019. J Chin Med Assoc 2020; 83 (06) 557-60
• 58 WorldHealthOrganization/app: COVID-19 App [Internet]. [cited 2020 Nov 10]. Available from: https://github.com/WorldHealthOrganization/app