Alvin Marcelo
The Official Line
Dr. Alvin B. Marcelo is a general and trauma surgeon by training who is currently the director of the University of the Philippines Manila National Telehealth Center. Right after residency training, he took his postdoctoral fellowship in medical informatics at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland with research interests in telepathology, mobile computing, and bibliometric analysis of MEDLINE content. Upon return, he established the Master of Science in Health Informatics program in the University. He is presently the manager of the International Open Source Network for ASEAN+3, a centre of excellence in free and/or open source software established by UNDP, and he manages the Community Health Information Tracking System (or CHITS) , a Stockholm Challenge finalist in the health category in 2006. He is the Philippine representative to the Asia Pacific Association for Medical Informatics (APAMI) and the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA).
Abstract:
Patient Care – Do FOSS applications make the difference to its successful
implementations
Free and/or Open Source Software has made a strong argument for economy and efficiency in software engineering. However, it has hardly made a case for successful implementations. The key question to be answered in this presentation is - "Do Free and/or Open Source Software applications lead to successful implementations?". The speaker comes from a mixed experience of failed and successful implementations all of which deployed FOSS. Two prominent projects - the Community Health Information Tracking System (www.chits.ph<http://www.chits.ph>) and the Integrated Surgical Information Systems are both successful and FOSS-based but whose development and maturity strategies are divergent. It is hoped that the real features of FOSS both as application and as methodology be dissected for its ultimate benefit.
About Me
I was born 14th of April 1966 and was educated at the Ateneo de Manila University . I completed my medical education at the University of the Philippines Manila College of Medicine. Right after medical school, I proceeded to finish my surgical residency at the Philippine General Hospital. As a consultant of the UP-PGH Department of Surgery, I left for a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in medical informatics at the US National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland.
I have been promoting free/open source software since I started dabbling with Linux in 1994. As a medical doctor, I had found the freedom offered by FOSS as exactly the liberation that we would wish to endow every citizen of this planet. It promotes the freedom of the mind which spurs further freedoms as the individual begins to realize he can actually transform his own world with free/open source software.
Happily married with Portia and with three wonderful kids: A, B, and Z.
My resume is here. My curriculum vitae is here.
Since 1996, I have worked on the following projects:
CHITS - Community Health Information Tracking System. By far, the most successful project I've worked in. This is the brainchild of Dr. Herman Tolentino who is now at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA.
ISIS - Integrated Surgical Information System. A system developed and maintained by Dr. Marie Carmela Lapitan at the Philippine General Hospital Department of Surgery. The longest and largest live clinical database in the Philippines.
PNHII - the Philippine National Health Information Infrastructure -- a local effort to set standards for health information in the Philippines.
My blog: Magtaya, magpalaya, magmahal
Websites I manage:
Other links:
