OpenEMR

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OpenEMR

Stable release	3.1.0 / August 24, 2009
Operating system	Any Unix-like, Mac OS, Windows
Platform	Cross-platform
Type	Open source, Practice management, Electronic Medical Records
License	GNU General Public License
Website	OpenEMR web site

OpenEMR is a free Open source, Practice management, Electronic Medical Records, prescription writing and medical billing application for Unix-like systems (Linux, UNIX, and BSD systems), Microsoft systems, Mac OS X and other platforms.

Contents 1 Features 1.1 Free 1.2 Patient Demographics 1.3 Patient Scheduling 1.4 Electronic Medical Records 1.5 Prescriptions 1.6 Medical Billing 1.7 Multilanguage Support 1.8 Security 1.9 Support 2 History 3 Community 4 Deployments 5 Architecture 6 Certification 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Features

[edit] Free

• Freely available
• Free to download, use, modify, and upgrade
• Free documentation^[1]
• Free support forum^[2]
• Open Source
• Released under the GNU General Public License

[edit] Patient Demographics

• Track patient demographics
  • Primary information (name, date of birth, sex, identification)
  • Marital status
  • Contact information of patient and patient's employer
  • Primary provider
  • HIPAA information
  • Language and ethnicity
  • Insurance coverage
• Fully Customizable

[edit] Patient Scheduling

• Supports multiple facilities
• Patient appointment notification via email and sms
• Compact and flexible appointment calendar
• Calendar features include:
  • Find open appointment slots
  • Categories for appointment types
  • Colors associated with appointment types
  • Repeating appointments
  • Restricting appointments based on type

[edit] Electronic Medical Records

• Encounters
• Medical Issues
• Medications
• Immunizations
• Forms and clinical notes:
  • Vitals (growth charts included)
  • SOAP note
  • Review of systems
  • Ability to create and customize forms
• Patient Reports
• Electronic digital document management
• Voice recognition ready (MS Windows Operating Systems)
• Paper chart tracking

[edit] Prescriptions

• Online drug search
• Track patient prescriptions and medications
• Create and send prescriptions
  • Print
  • Fax
  • Email
• In-house pharmacy dispensary support

[edit] Medical Billing

• Flexible system of coding including CPT, HCPCS and ICD codes and the ability to add others
• Support for electronic billing to clearing houses such as Medavant/Capario and ZirMED using ANSI X12
• Support for paper claims
• Medical claim management interface
• Insurance tracking interface
• Accounts receivable interface
• EOB entry interface
• Customizable to work with a clearing house for automated 835 or ERA entry

[edit] Multilanguage Support

• Supports use of multiple languages within the same clinic
• Currently supports English (American), English (Indian), Dutch, Greek, Portuguese (Brazilian), Portuguese (European), Spanish, and Swedish^[3]
• Any language can be added and translated in a collaborative Google Docs spreadsheet maintained by the OpenEMR community^[4]
• Fully supports UTF-8 encoding

[edit] Security

• Supports fine-grained per user access controls
• Remotely accessible from any modern web browser with a suitable security certificate installed

[edit] Support

• Free online support^[2]
• Vast online documentation^[1]

[edit] History

OpenEMR was originally developed by Synitech and version 1.0 was released in June 2001 as MP Pro (MedicalPractice Professional). Much of the code was then reworked for HIPAA compliance and improved security, and the product was reintroduced as OpenEMR version 1.3 a year later, in July 2002.^[5]

The project evolved through version 2.0 and the Pennington Firm (Pennfirm) took over as its primary maintainer in January 2004.

Pennfirm made the medical community more aware of OpenEMR, and attracted a number of independent developers who became increasingly active in making improvements (Sunset Systems was the most prolific of these). Walt Pennington transferred the OpenEMR software repository to SourceForge in March 2005, where it remains today. Mr. Pennington also established Rod Roark, Andres Paglayan and James Perry, Jr. as administrators of the project. By consensus of the project leaders the SourceForge OpenEMR home web page is maintained at oemr.org.

[edit] Community

The OpenEMR community is dedicated to guarding OpenEMR's status as a free, open source software solution for medical practices. Its members are composed of software developers, as well as physicians and others with extensive medical and billing knowledge, all with the common goal of making OpenEMR a superior alternative to its proprietary counterparts.

Following are some of the guiding principles that have been formulated by the project's most active members:

• OpenEMR will remain 100% free software under the GNU GPL.
• Maintain a spirit of openness, kindness and cooperation.
• Give back to the free software community.
• Document our changes and improvements.
• Do not hide problems.
• Do not discriminate against persons or groups, subject to our focus on the field of medicine and we encourage the use of OpenEMR in other languages.
• Avoid needless complexity, to include software design, installation, maintenance and usability.

The OpenEMR community is thriving and enjoying some of the broadest user support and developer support. OpenEMR is one of the most popular free electronic medical records in use today with over 2,500 downloads per month.^[6] The development group has professional developers, security specialists, and physicians involved in the development process.

The community maintains the official OpenEMR home web page at oemr.org.

[edit] Deployments

Because this is an open source project that does not register its users, it is very difficult to estimate the number of practitioners that are using this software. A survey of commercial supporters^[7] of this software in the US show at least 100 clinical facilities (with an average of 5 practitioners per facility) are using this software with commercial help. There are also articles describing single clinician deployments^[8][9][10] and a free clinic deployment^[11]. Internationally, it is known that there are practitioners in Puerto Rico, Australia, Sweden, Holland, Israel, India, Malaysia, Nepal, Indonesia, Bermuda, Armenia, Kenya, and Greece that are either testing or actively using OpenEMR for use as a free electronic medical records program.

[edit] Architecture

OpenEMR is a "LAMP" type of web based software application that uses a web server such as Apache, MySQL as the database and PHP as its programming language. As with most "LAMP" architecture, OpenEMR can run on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS-X, and Microsoft architectures.

[edit] Certification

In midst of a large collaborative effort working towards "Meaningful Use"^[12] and CCHIT Certification,^{[13][14][15][16][17][18]} which involves a development roadmap^[19] and fundraising^[20].

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b} "OpenEMR Official Wiki". http://www.openmedsoftware.org. Retrieved 2009-11-25. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "Free OpenEMR Support at Sourceforge". http://sourceforge.net/projects/openemr/support. Retrieved 2009-11-25. 
3. ^ "OpenEMR Translation Database Statistics". http://www.openmedsoftware.org/wiki/Internationalization_Project_Status. Retrieved 2009-11-25. 
4. ^ "OpenEMR Internationalization Project". http://www.openmedsoftware.org/wiki/OpenEMR_Internationalization_Development. Retrieved 2009-11-25. 
5. ^ Stack, Matthew (2002-07-05). "OpenEMR Released". http://linuxmednews.org/linuxmednews/1025910430/index_html. Retrieved 2009-11-26. 
6. ^ "OpenEMR Sourceforge Download Statistics". http://sourceforge.net/project/stats/detail.php?group_id=60081&ugn=openemr&type=prdownload&mode=12months&file_id=0. Retrieved 2009-12-24. 
7. ^ "OpenEMR Commercial Help". http://www.openmedsoftware.org/wiki/OpenEMR_Commercial_Help. Retrieved 2009-12-14. 
8. ^ Holzer, Joe (2009-11-25). "OpenEMR Success Story". http://www.emrandhipaa.com/emr-and-hipaa/2009/11/25/openemr-success-story/. Retrieved 2009-12-14. 
9. ^ Leeds, Mark (2006-01-29). "Using OpenEMR in Family Practice". http://linuxmednews.com/1138557562/index_html. Retrieved 2009-12-14. 
10. ^ Bowen, Samuel. "OpenEMR Case Study". http://www.ehrlive.com/docs/bowen_cs.pdf. Retrieved 2009-12-14. 
11. ^ Clifford, Kevin (2009-11-15). "Guest Article: Open Source EMRs for free clinics". http://www.healthcareguy.com/2009/11/15/guest-article-open-source-emrs-for-free-clinics/. Retrieved 2009-12-14. 
12. ^ "Meaningful Use Documents Government Website". http://healthit.hhs.gov/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=1325&&PageID=16490&mode=2&in_hi_userid=11113&cached=true. Retrieved 2009-12-14. 
13. ^ "OpenEMR CCHIT Organizational Teleconference 7/10/2009". http://www.openmedsoftware.org/wiki/CCHIT_Organizational_Teleconference. Retrieved 2009-11-25. 
14. ^ "OpenEMR CCHIT Organizational Teleconference 7/24/2009". http://www.openmedsoftware.org/wiki/CCHIT_Organizational_Teleconference_2. Retrieved 2009-11-25. 
15. ^ "OpenEMR CCHIT Organizational Teleconference 8/24/2009". http://www.openmedsoftware.org/wiki/CCHIT_Organizational_Teleconference_3. Retrieved 2009-11-25. 
16. ^ "OpenEMR CCHIT Organizational Teleconference 10/24/2009". http://www.openmedsoftware.org/wiki/CCHIT_Organizational_Teleconference_4. Retrieved 2009-11-25. 
17. ^ "OpenEMR CCHIT Planning Teleconference 11/30/2009". http://www.openmedsoftware.org/wiki/CCHIT_Planning_Teleconference_1. Retrieved 2009-12-14. 
18. ^ "OpenEMR CCHIT Planning Teleconference 12/14/2009". http://www.openmedsoftware.org/wiki/CCHIT_Planning_Teleconference_2. Retrieved 2009-12-14. 
19. ^ "OpenEMR CCHIT Certification Roadmap". http://www.openmedsoftware.org/wiki/OpenEMR_Certification. Retrieved 2009-11-25. 
20. ^ "OpenEMR CCHIT Certification Fundraising". http://www.openmedsoftware.org/wiki/Open_SourceMedical_Software_Donations. Retrieved 2009-11-25. 

• Bowen, Samuel; Hoyt, Robert; Glenn, Ladeana; McCormick, Donald; Gonzalez, Xavier. "Open Source Electronic Health Records: in Practice". Retrieved 2009-11-27.
• Bowen, Samuel; Valdes, Ignacio; Hoyt, Robert; Glenn, Ladeana; McCormick, Donald; Gonzalez, Xavier. "Open Source Electronic Health Records: In Public Policy". Retrieved 2009-11-27.
• Shah, Shahid (2007-01-07). "Open Source EMR and Practice Management Software Appliance". Retrieved 2009-12-07.
• Weatherby, Julia (2006-02-16). "Technical Aspects of OpenEMR". Retrieved 2009-11-27.
• Simbini, T. (2006-02-16). "OpenEMR Architecture". Retrieved 2009-11-27.
• Donahue, Margaret (2006-02-16). "The OpenEMR Community". Retrieved 2009-11-27.

[edit] External links

• OpenEMR Official Website
• OpenEMR Official Wiki
• OpenEMR Official Support Forums
• OpenEMR Official Development Center
• OpenEMR Official Source Code Repository
• Open Source Medical Software - Non-profit company dedicated to open source electronic health records software
• OpenEMR Open Source Virtual Appliance
• OpenEMR Official Commercial Affiliates