From: "Jane Crosbie & Chris  Fraser" <pangaea@comcen.com.au>
To: "Jonathan Corbet" <corbet@eklektix.com>
Subject: the littlefish health project
Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 23:09:38 +1000

Littlefish Project Goal

Littlefish is an open source health project designed to cooperatively
develop initially an affordable, high quality Patient Information and
Recall System and later a comprehensive Health Management Information
System for Health Care Providers in the developing world.  In simple
terms those in the most need usually have the least finances to afford
such systems.

Littlefish will be available under an appropriate open source licence
to ensure that end users and developers may have free access to source
code and binaries and may freely alter the source code, and that the
programme will be free to Primary Health Care providers in developing
countries , to disadvantaged groups in other parts of the world and to
academia.  The ultimate goal is to develop a modular application,
capable of running on the widest possible range of currently available
operating systems, sufficiently flexible to function on very limited
or elaborate hardware resources.

The Initial development will be in EIFFEL on Linux.  Features will
include persistent storage and retrieval of health care information,
integrating clinical decision support functionality and a highly
portable client interface.  The project strives to achieve actual
compliance with established standards for health informatics. The Good
Electronic Health Record (GEHR) is the model to which the project will
comply, and compatibility will be available for Health Level 7 (HL7)
specifications, thus maximizing interoperability with what legacy
systems may exist in healthcare settings in the developing world.

The project needs assistance on all levels in: programming, project
planning, design, review and beta testing of prototypes,
documentation, quality assurance, security issues, translation,
technical writing, build co-ordination, database planning and mining
techniques.  Contributors from all fields especially health are
welcome to get involved www.littlefish.au.com

Best Wishes
Chris Fraser
The Littlefish Health Project
e-mail: cfraser@paninfo.com.au
Website: www.littlefish.au.com