Open Source Approach for Mitigating Misinformation Risk in Complementary and Alternative Medicine Practices

Patients and health maintenance organizations are spending approximately $47 billion annually on innovative alternative medical techniques such as aromatherapy, biofeedback, chiropractic manipulation, homeopathy and others. Health insurance companies, drug regulation agencies, medical practitioners and educated patients are demanding more reliable information concerning these alternative medicines and complementary processes. While these approaches have been successful, the community of stakeholders is demanding scientifically proven, evidence-based validation of the materials and practices. Validation is essential to formalize the use of alternative medicines and complementary treatments. However there are very few peer reviewed journal articles and a lack of approval methodologies in this field, which may be related symptoms. Another key problem is the lack of accurate knowledge about the proper diagnosis-treatment match. This may result in negligence risk for practitioners or opportunity lost risk for patients who miss access to a potential remedy. The open source approach evolved in the information technology field out of the free public software movement, which has been effective for knowledge creation, collaboration and sharing across disciplines and cultures. For example, the authors all have free Internet browsers and utility software. Therefore, the authors investigated applying the 'open source' ideology as a potential methodology for solving these problems. They developed an alternative medicine knowledge development framework to facilitate creating, collaborating on, and sharing innovations in the field.