Open-Source EHR Systems       

Electronic health record (EHR) systems typically comprise of a practice management application (Scheduling, Patient Registration, Billing, Reporting) and EMR application (Clinical notes, Assessments/problem lists, e-prescription, standard prescriptions, Standard and Electronic lab orders, Standard and Electronic lab reporting, Document management, Decision support, Disease management, etc.).

A number of EHR systems are now available under open-source licensing, sometimes referred to as free and open-source software (FOSS). A major motivation for such efforts is the fact that proprietary health information systems, for the most part, are very expensive and difficult to customize. Among the open-source EHRs available for the USA, ClearHealth (www.clear-health.com), FreeMED (www.freemedsoftware.org), OpenEMR (commercial, www.openemr.net), OpenEMR (community, sourceforge.net/projects/openemr), WorldVistA EHR (www.worldvista.org/World_VistA_EHR) are some of the products that have gained wider acceptance among the medical community. For medical practices outside the USA, a few open-source EHRs are available such as the OSCAR (Canadian System, www.oscarcanada.org) and GNUmed (Germany, www.gnumed.org).

Open-source EHRs do carry several advantages including lower start-up and maintenance costs and greater flexibility for customization.

Jave JEE technology and the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) are some of the common open-source technologies that are used to develop these systems. Once developed, deployment options for the EHR software include (1)on-site installation of the EHR software only (2)on-site installation of hardware with all software pre-configured on them (3)remote Web-based hosting of EHR system (4)Software-as-a-service option.

NewCreationIT can assist you in identifying the most suitable open-source EHR system and then customize, deploy and support this system for you. To learn more about our company, our services and how we can assist your business, please contact us: business@newcreationit.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it   or submit a request online.

References: Open-Source EHR Systems for Ambulatory Care: A Market Assessment, Sujansky & Associates, January 2008 (http://www.chcf.org/)