OpenEMR - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/OpenEMR

OpenEMR
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

OpenEMR is a free Open source, OpenEMR

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. Stable release 4.0.0 / March 26, 2011

Operating system Any Unix-like, Mac OS, Windows

Platform Cross-platform
Contents Type Open source, Practice management, Electronic Medical
Records
1 Features
1.1 Free License GNU General Public License
1.2 Patient Website OpenEMR web site (http://www.oemr.org/)
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 Hosted OpenEMR
8 References
9 External links

Features
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 Login

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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
Demographics
Fully Customizable

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
Scheduling
Repeating appointments
Restricting appointments based on type

Electronic Medical Records

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

Prescriptions

Online drug search

Track patient prescriptions and medications
Create and send prescriptions
Print
Fax
Email Prescription
In-house pharmacy dispensary support

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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
(http://www.capario.com/) and ZirMED (http://www.zirmed.com/) using
ANSI X12
Support for paper claims Billing
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

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 Turkish[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
Greek Screenshot
Security

Supports fine-grained per user access controls

Remotely accessible from any modern web browser with a suitable
security certificate installed

Support

Free online support[2]

Vast online documentation[1] Access Controls

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
(http://www.sunsetsystems.com/) 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 (http://www.oemr.org) .

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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 3,700 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 (http://www.oemr.org) . There is
extensive documentation on the project wiki (http://www.openmedsoftware.org)

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 Pakistan[12], Puerto Rico, Australia,
Sweden, Holland, Israel, India[13], 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.

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, Mac OS X, and Microsoft architectures.

Certification
There is currently a large collaborative effort working towards "Meaningful Use"[14] and CCHIT Certification,
[15][16][17][18][19][20]
. This certification effort involves thirty professional developers that have been working
since mid November, 2009; as of 2/24/2010, the certification project is 60% complete.[21][22] This certification

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project involves the addition of the following features[21][22]:

1. Latest Security and Privacy Requirements

2. Computer Physician Order Entry
3. Drug Decision Support - includes drug-drug, drug-allergy, drug-food, and drug-disease checking
4. Electronic Prescribing
5. Lab Test Results
6. Patient Lists
7. CMS Quality Reporting
8. Patient Reminders
9. Disease Management - includes smoking status and cessation
10. Insurance Eligibility
11. Patient Electronic Copy of Health Information
12. Patient Electronic Access to Health Information
13. Patient Clinical Summaries
14. Exchange Clinical Information
15. Medication Reconciliation
16. Summary Care Record for Transition of Care/Referral
17. Immunization Registries
18. Electronic Syndromic Surveillance

There is a roadmap[21] and ongoing fund raising activities [23] .

Hosted OpenEMR
Numerous providers have configured the OpenEMR platform to function in a "Hosted Application" model,
which allows access to OpenEMR without the need to download and install the source code to a local server.
Users of this model access the OpenEMR software via a web browser over an internet connection. Security
measures and protocols such as SSL, VPN and firewalled access are provided for encryption and data
protection. Benefits of the hosted models include reduced dependancy on programming literacy, 24/7 anywhere
access to data via secure internet connections, and technical support from the hosting provider. The following
providers offer hosted installations of OpenEMR:

EHR Live http://www.ehrlive.com

EMROPEN http://www.emropen.com

Global Med Solutions http://www.globalmedsolutions.com

Medical Information Integration http://www.mi-squared.com

MMF Systems http://www.mmfemr.com

OpenEMR HQ http://www.openemrhq.com

OpenemrSupport http://www.openemrsupport.com

Phyaura http://www.phyaura.com

Sunset Systems http://www.sunsetsystems.com

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ViCarePlus http://www.vicareplus.com

Origen IT http://www.origenit.com

ZH Healthcare http://www.zhhealthcare.com

References
1. ^ a b "OpenEMR Official Wiki" (http://www.openmedsoftware.org) . http://www.openmedsoftware.org. Retrieved
2009-11-25.
2. ^ a b "Free OpenEMR Support at Sourceforge" (http://sourceforge.net/projects/openemr/support) .
http://sourceforge.net/projects/openemr/support. Retrieved 2009-11-25.
3. ^ "OpenEMR Translation Database Statistics" (http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/Internationalization_Project_Status) . http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/Internationalization_Project_Status. Retrieved 2009-11-25.
4. ^ "OpenEMR Internationalization Project" (http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/OpenEMR_Internationalization_Development) . 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) . 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) . http://sourceforge.net/project/stats
/detail.php?group_id=60081&ugn=openemr&type=prdownload&mode=12months&file_id=0. Retrieved
2010-02-23.
7. ^ "OpenEMR Commercial Help" (http://www.openmedsoftware.org/wiki/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/) . 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) . http://linuxmednews.com/1138557562/index_html. Retrieved 2009-12-14.
10. ^ Bowen, Samuel. "OpenEMR Case Study" (http://www.ehrlive.com/docs/bowen_cs.pdf) . 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/) . http://www.healthcareguy.com/2009/11/15/guest-
article-open-source-emrs-for-free-clinics/. Retrieved 2009-12-14.
12. ^ Mushtaq, Hina (2010-01-18). "Jaroka Electronic Health Record System provides opportunities for further
Research and Analysis" (http://blogs.tele-healthcare.org/2010/01/jaroka-electronic-health-record-system.html) .
http://blogs.tele-healthcare.org/2010/01/jaroka-electronic-health-record-system.html. Retrieved 2010-01-23.
13. ^ DIMAPUR (2010-04-05). "FPAI conducts training on OpenEMR" (http://nagalandpost.com
/ShowStory.aspx?npoststoryiden=UzEwMjQyOTE%3D-u5jpoTKCit0%3D) . http://nagalandpost.com
/ShowStory.aspx?npoststoryiden=UzEwMjQyOTE%3D-u5jpoTKCit0%3D. Retrieved 2010-04-05.
14. ^ "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) . 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.
15. ^ "OpenEMR CCHIT Organizational Teleconference 7/10/2009" (http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/CCHIT_Organizational_Teleconference) . http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/CCHIT_Organizational_Teleconference. Retrieved 2009-11-25.
16. ^ "OpenEMR CCHIT Organizational Teleconference 7/24/2009" (http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/CCHIT_Organizational_Teleconference_2) . http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/CCHIT_Organizational_Teleconference_2. Retrieved 2009-11-25.
17. ^ "OpenEMR CCHIT Organizational Teleconference 8/24/2009" (http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/CCHIT_Organizational_Teleconference_3) . http://www.openmedsoftware.org

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/wiki/CCHIT_Organizational_Teleconference_3. Retrieved 2009-11-25.

18. ^ "OpenEMR CCHIT Organizational Teleconference 10/24/2009" (http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/CCHIT_Organizational_Teleconference_4) . http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/CCHIT_Organizational_Teleconference_4. Retrieved 2009-11-25.
19. ^ "OpenEMR CCHIT Planning Teleconference 11/30/2009" (http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/CCHIT_Planning_Teleconference_1) . http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/CCHIT_Planning_Teleconference_1. Retrieved 2009-12-14.
20. ^ "OpenEMR CCHIT Planning Teleconference 12/14/2009" (http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/CCHIT_Planning_Teleconference_2) . http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/CCHIT_Planning_Teleconference_2. Retrieved 2009-12-14.
21. ^ a b c "OpenEMR CCHIT Certification Roadmap" (http://www.openmedsoftware.org/wiki/OpenEMR_Certification)
. http://www.openmedsoftware.org/wiki/OpenEMR_Certification. Retrieved 2010-02-23.
22. ^ a b Bowen, Samuel (2010-02-23). "OpenEMR Project Releases version 3.2" (http://linuxmednews.com
/1266898759) . http://linuxmednews.com/1266898759. Retrieved 2010-02-25.
23. ^ "OpenEMR CCHIT Certification Fundraising" (http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/Open_SourceMedical_Software_Donations) . http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/Open_SourceMedical_Software_Donations. Retrieved 2009-11-25.

AG (2010-02-12). "OpenEMR - At a glance (http://bkaeg.org/blog/archives/2010/02/openemr---at-a.html)

". Retrieved 2010-02-16.
Lewis, Hans (2010-01-18). "Electronic Medical and Health Records Usage Increases in U.S.: Report
(http://healthcare.tmcnet.com/topics/healthcare/articles/72903-electronic-medical-health-records-usage-
increases-us-report.htm) ". Retrieved 2010-01-23.
Bowen, Samuel; Hoyt, Robert; Glenn, Ladeana; McCormick, Donald; Gonzalez, Xavier. "Open Source
Electronic Health Records: in Practice (http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/Open_Source_EHR_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 (http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/Open_Source_EHR_Public_Policy) ". Retrieved 2009-11-27.
Shah, Shahid (2007-01-07). "Open Source EMR and Practice Management Software Appliance
(http://www.healthcareguy.com/2007/01/07/open-source-emr-and-practice-management-software-
appliance/341/) ". Retrieved 2009-12-07.
Weatherby, Julia (2006-02-16). "Technical Aspects of OpenEMR (http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/Technical_Aspects_of_OpenEMR) ". Retrieved 2009-11-27.
Simbini, T. (2006-02-16). "OpenEMR Architecture (http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/OpenEMR_Architecture) ". Retrieved 2009-11-27.
Donahue, Margaret (2006-02-16). "The OpenEMR Community (http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/The_OpenEMR_Community) ". Retrieved 2009-11-27.

External links
OpenEMR Official Website (http://www.oemr.org/)
OpenEMR Official Wiki (http://www.openmedsoftware.org)
OpenEMR Official Support Forums (http://sourceforge.net/projects/openemr/forums)
OpenEMR Official Development Center (http://sourceforge.net/projects/openemr/develop)
OpenEMR Official Source Code Repository (http://sourceforge.net/projects/openemr/)
Open Source Medical Software - Non-profit company dedicated to open source electronic health records
software (http://www.openmedsoftware.org/wiki/Open_Source_Medical_Software/)
OpenEMR Open Source Virtual Appliance (http://www.bradymd.com/appliance)
OpenEMR Official Commercial Affiliates (http://www.openmedsoftware.org
/wiki/OpenEMR_Commercial_Help)

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Categories: Health software | Medical informatics | Health informatics | Open source health care resources |
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