Virtual Hospital Project at UCLouvain/EPL
The project aims to develop educational tools in medical informatics, specifically a virtual hospital, to support the teaching of engineering and computer science students. This virtual platform will simulate real hospital IT systems, allowing students to interact with it on their laptops before entering the workforce. The platform will integrate open-source software and datasets, providing students with a learning environment for hospital IT systems, software integration, data exchange, and AI model integration. This is primarily an initiative in medical informatics education, which is why it is supported by the Louvain School of Engineering (EPL).
Le specialiste: Un hôpital virtuel pour améliorer l’enseignement en informatique médicale
Collaborative Open Source Platform
Our platform integrates several open source systems for health care. To make the integration possible, we actively contribute to the development of these systems. For example, we develop the Radiology module for GNUHealth and the Imaging module for OpenMRS that integrates Orthanc, the open source PACS, into the GNUHealth and OpenMRS workflow.
Virtual Hospital Platform
The virtual Hospital Platform is part of the Virtual Hospital project, which includes an open source hospital information system, an e-health system, and various health-related tools. IT systems in the health care sector are often complex, and higher education institutions often lack the resources to train students in realistic settings. Professionals typically learn about clinical technologies—such as patient health records, imaging systems, healthcare networks, and medical billing only after being hired into the healthcare sector. The platform aims to fill this gap by offering with realistic systems and representative medical data.
Architecture
The Virtual Hospital Platform system architecture consists of different components that connect to the Hospital Information System (HIS) GNUHealth, the Electronic Health Record System (EHR) OpenMRS, and the Clinical Decision Support System. We plan to include Large Language Models (LLMs) driven tools to provide feedback and AI-generated exercises. Learning management systems track progress and assessments. Simulation tools provide virtual patient scenarios. The platform is is easy to deploy and designed for continuous improvement.
Core components of our platform
- GNU Health HIS (Hospital Information System)
- Ozone EHR (Electronic Health Record)
- OpenEHR (Open Electronic Health Record)
- PARROT (AI-based Imaging Processing Platform)
- OpenTPS (Treatment Planning System)
- Mirth Connect (Integration Engine)
- HAPI FHIR (Healthcare API for FHIR)
- Senaite (Enterprise Open Source Laboratory System)
Educational modules
- Tools
- Education
- Validation satisfaction
- Medical data center
Collaboration
The Virtual Hospital Platform offers a complete suite of open-source medical applications, positioning it as a resource for medical informatics education and continuing medical education.
