E-Sign Streamline

Hello all.

I'm working on a project promoting the use of Family NPs in primary care. The project is designed to provide care to the underserved community. We're interested in OpenEMR.

Our initial OpenEMR customization efforts focus on simplifying workflows and cutting the number of clicks (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24060331/) (https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/digital/how-collaboration-it-cut-1500-clicks-day-physician). Our providers understand from experience that many practices require all of the features OpenEMR offers. But we need a much simpler experience to keep costs down and improve access to care.

One area we're having trouble with is the password requirement for the E-Sign. We want to require providers accessing the app to use complex 15 character passwords and thus password vaults. This is OK for a once a shift login, but it's too time consuming for signing a whole shift of charts.

Bad actors trying to break into a medical charting apps are seeking big payouts. But there's no benefit for bad actors in signing out charts. Many practices allow chart signing with the just the providers name. And coding something like that in OpenEMR would likely be easier than coding a special E-Sign password capability.

In terms of accomplishing this on our own, I have a question. Is there a means to write php that can't be overwritten in subsequent updates/upgrades?

Thanks for you help and all your work.

Hi @gvh, sounds like a nice feature and would be welcome in the community code base thus ensuring it will move forward. Please find the contributing guide for an easy way to submit the code for review. Thank you.

Thanks Stephen. I might have the skills to get up to speed on that, but the time is always an issue. I’d enjoy trying though. So we’ll see what happens.

Thanks to you and the community for OpenEMR. It’s an important asset in efforts to push back on the escalating cost of US medicine which blocks many people from getting healthcare (https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2019).