I am helping support a missionary school in Nicaragua that recently obtained services of a full time American public health nurse. They have IT infrastructure for school activities, but are starting health clinic from ground up. Would this software be suitable for such? Nurse will be seeing students and families, doing physical exams, nutrition screening, immunizations, etc. Visiting medical teams may provide direct medical care, such as dentistry, etc. I’ve asked the nurse to begin mapping out her anticipated work flow, and I’ve starting organizing into tables. Goal is to organize her clinical workflow and to generate reports for administration and donors. Has anyone else used OpenEMR in this manner? From what I’ve seen of demo, it looks like it could do the job, but I am just getting started and help is appreciated. I am a pharmacist with some knowledge of HIT. Will get some HIT volunteers once I learn some more. Thanks.
OpenEMR will work well in a developing country. Despite being open source there is a panoply of functionalities and modules, such as that for a Dispensary. If electricity is unreliable, the software can be used off-line.
Peruse through the Wiki as you experiment with the Demo.
If the health clinic were to be turned over in the future to the locals, the software is available in Latin American Spanish.
It is counter-intuitive to think that free does not mean shoddy as it applies to OpenEMR. But it does mean sweat equity, if professional support is not contemplated.
You will find Forum members to be helpful. Someone will come up with the solution and if not, it will be in a future patch.
Although I am a doctor working in Curacao, and not using OpenEMR on a regular basis, since my collegue is addicted to our own older programm I might give you some thoughts to ponder and advise.
OpenEMR is multi functional, for multi Users and can support Multi Clinics and might even become available for a broader Health Care project than your own missionary Clinic and Health Nurse (See the link to Kenya?, Vietnam? in the WIKI pages).
It is Browser friendly, so if you have the option to work from a Server with Internet connection for a Nurse in remote areas it would be great. If electricity and Web-support is a headache, don’t choose the Internet Server option and use OpenEMR on the local network (of the school) or just use it as a Desktop implementation without connecting to other computers. But you can have access from every spot connected to the network.
Working in different Languages is great, but the USER input has to be in the same language for continuity (Heath Nurse sounds English, she can use the English translation all others can use Spanish, but input has to be in Nigaraguan. For languages of the OpenEMR software you can choose between Latin Spanish and Spanish Spanish or make your own preferable translations for local Nigaraguan medical impact or lagnuages like Miskito or Garifuna I would stay away from Creole English to not confuse the USERS.
Don’t get a fright from the many options available, just choose the ones you like and understand. Don’t forget to read the available WIKI pages and make use of the Manual frequently. Definite progress will be made and before you know, YOU are the expert and can help others with their OpenEMR implementation.
The worst thing you can do with OpenEMR is to forget about Back-ups… all other mistakes can be corrected, but might take some time and investigation.
Thank you both for the valuable information. I will continue to play with the demo and read through the materials on the site. I’ve suggested the nurse begin to keep paper records of all of her activities, with an eye towards categorizing her most common tasks and encounters so that we can build them into forms, reports, etc.
The school is in a metropolitan area and I believe they have networked their existing computers for their growing staff. We can look into options for how best to configure the software based on where they are at on the academic side. The point about user language is very appreciated. The nurse is bilingual, but their sustainability plan is to expand hiring and utilization of locals going forward.
I am very impressed by the package demo and, given the quality and timeliness of your forum responses, I am very encouraged to move forward with OpenEMR. Many thanks.
There is less traffic on the Development Demo and hence less chance of distortions from user experimentations. It resets every day at 9 a.m. CST, which is the best time to have it in its pristine state.
Pimm (Pieter W.) is the Layout Based Visit Form Docent, (How about “LBVFD” after your name, Pimm? Almost as nice as “CBE”, if you are an Anglophile?). Feel free to ask about any specialized forms that your Nurse Practitioner may require.
I might one time have known something about LBF. But Rod is the Developer of that module and I have seen many messages that are way beyond my knowledge on LBF. I have to refer myself to the WIKI pages and even than, I don’t know what I am doing, but with trial and error I get what I want. So NO CBE and NO LBVFD for me.
But best advise in these times of trial and error is as always, take something that is almost what you want and make your changes to that Form. Could be LBF of any other FORM used in OpenEMR. In my opinion the Vitals form is the most useful and immediately also the most complicated with its graphics.
If you start with OpenEMR it is good to know that there are many options and someone has to make choices.
CAMOS (Pre-Typed information) or SOAP (Subjective, Objective, Analyse, Plan), I did not like to use them together, but both have advantages.
How you want to do the Pharmacy part, you might have to make choices, but for a Pharmacist this might be an easy step.
A general FORM for intake or just as they com you make a note? Etc.
I am not up to date with the most recent Developments but things like REMINDERS and Measurements of treatment, Statistics, etc might have a priority for your Health Clinic.
There is a specialized extra for Family Planning and Weight Control centers, you might want to include them for their extras.