Open source software, or software with publicly available code, has become popular in the United States federal government in recent decades due to its cost savings, improved security, faster innovation and flexibility. Now, the healthcare sector is getting serious about open source.
Andrea Fletcher became the first ever chief digital strategy officer for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in July, and in the time since, she has been laser-focused on standing up the first open source program office in the federal government.
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“CMS is standing up this OSPO, Open Source Program Office. It’s the first in the government. We’re trying it out,” Fletcher told Executive Mosaic’s Summer Myatt in an exclusive video interview. “We already have a lot of really fantastic open source programs and applications. We have some of the largest APIs that are open source in Blue Button 2.0 and Data at the Point of Care and really just pushing these programs forward in how we release our software and our code to the greater healthcare ecosystem.”
Fletcher said open source software will give hospitals, health insurance providers, drug companies and other components of the healthcare ecosystem better access to the code that CMS has already developed. Over the next couple of years, Fletcher said the agency will explore what open source policies may look like as it builds and grows an open source community around the work CMS does.
Open source software has been around for decades, even in the U.S. federal government. Fletcher noted that CMS and the Department of Health and Human Services have both had open source policies for many years. But now, there seems to finally be some momentum behind it.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a momentous time, because the policy has been sitting there. It’s just been waiting for somebody to come and pick it up. And we’ve decided to pick it up and see what we can do with it,” Fletcher said.
Learn more about how open source is changing healthcare — watch Andrea Fletcher’s full video interview here, and subscribe to Executive Mosaic’s YouTube channel to stay up-to-date with the latest news and insights from GovCon leaders.
