How Open-Source Software is Shaping the Future of Healthcare

Open-source software has been a powerful catalyst for innovation in computer and software engineering, driving significant advancements in healthcare, particularly in medical and surgical technologies. Recently, the open-source movement has expanded beyond software, encompassing the release of code, data, and AI models, further accelerating progress across diverse fields. However, in healthcare, open-sourcing faces distinct challenges, including navigating regulatory hurdles to meet industry standards, ensuring robust patient data protection, managing the costs of specialised hardware and software maintenance, and addressing the limited availability of expert clinicians needed to annotate, test, and validate AI innovations. In this talk, Miguel will explore how open-source technologies are advancing healthcare, with a focus on medical and surgical innovations. He will highlight key advancements while exploring the complexities of clinical translation, using three of his projects as examples: Fetal Ultrasound Image Synthesis, endoscopy-based video analysis for surgery, and real-time AI diagnosis of eye movement disorders. The talk will examine the challenges of clinical translation and showcase examples of innovative technologies that leverage open-source software, models, and data to address some of the most complex problems in healthcare. Finally, to inspire and spark innovation among the next generation of engineers, researchers, and clinicians from academia and industry, this talk will showcase how the emerging open-source software community for surgical and medical technologies is striving to: (a) Foster Collaboration and Community Building, (b) Enhance Security and Transparency, (c) Promote Customisation and Flexibility, (d) Ensure Cost-Effectiveness, Sustainability, and Scalability, and (e) Drive Rapid Innovation and Future-Proofing.