In OpenEMR’s Patient → History section, the tabs (General, Family History, Relatives, Lifestyle, Other) mainly capture risk factors, family history, and lifestyle information. The General tab, in particular, seems focused on risk indicators rather than confirmed diagnoses.
There doesn’t appear to be a dedicated place in the History module to record the patient’s own medical conditions (e.g., diabetes, hypertension).
Can I treat Issues / Problem List as the intended location for storing a patient’s actual medical history? I thought it is for storing patient’s current health problems, so should I treat the oldest condition as medical history then?
Although I don’t use this section but it seams as a reasnable way to record personal history past and current. If you expand that section you would have the option to mark the problem as resolved. You also have several datasets to search and record medical history ICD 10, SNOMED, CQM , and OID
Hello @riya
As you guessed and Moussa touched on, the ‘Issues’ item on the dashboard menu is the specific feature intended for this pourpose.
This is where a patient’s current and past history medical problems and treatment issues are documented along with relevant diagnoses and their codes, active/ inactive dates of the condition, etc. You can associate encounter notes with specific issues/ problems and v/v. Additionally, even though it is not intended for this, the Issues feature is structured in a way that makes it possible to use POMR (Problem Oriented Medical Records).
The OpenEMR wiki has a good description of the use of the Issues feature.
Here’s a tutorial on customizing the Issues list. It is not a complex process and can tailor the list to your specific needs.
Unfortunately the wiki has been hardened against hack attacks so the search feature is unavailable to users who do not have a wiki account. But it’s simple to get if you’re interested.
Or just come back here and ask the community for more info!
Best- Harley
