Open EMR and Clinical Research

quantomix wrote on Sunday, December 30, 2012:

Hello all,

I am planning to deploy Open EMR in a country in Africa.
However, some of the patients will be part of several clinical research studies/programs (malaria, HIV, etc…).

Is there a way to group patients in specific program once they have been enrolled?
Can Open EMR be used to manage research programs?
If yes how.
If Open EMR can do that then it will be a total package solution for countries in Africa.

Looking forward for any help on this area.

Thanks
Sam

capminds wrote on Sunday, December 30, 2012:

sam,
          Patient categorization is not available on OpenEMR.however we can customize OpenEMR.Based on your requirement.please let me know.

Thanks,
Naina
emr@capminds.com
www.capminds.com

quantomix wrote on Sunday, December 30, 2012:

Hi Naina,

Please contact me offline to discuss your customization fees.

Thanks
Sam

capminds wrote on Sunday, December 30, 2012:

Sam,
         Could you please send me your entire  requirement to us

Naina
emr@capminds.com

quantomix wrote on Sunday, December 30, 2012:

Ok Naina,

I will send that to you offline tomorrow.

Thanks
Sam

bradymiller wrote on Sunday, December 30, 2012:

Hi,
Support for research studies would be a very useful addition to OpenEMR. I’d suggest having part of your discussion (your specific requirements etc.) publicly on the forums so other users/developers can weigh in. This will then give it the best chance of your hired professionals coming up with a solution/code that can be added to the official codebase.
thanks,
-brady
OpenEMR

visolveemr wrote on Monday, December 31, 2012:

Sam,

It would be great if you could share the objective of your research programme… If it is something to do with satistical sampling, then we have HIPPA De-identification module for OpenEMR

Thanks
Devi

kodusote wrote on Monday, December 31, 2012:

Dear Devi,

Is the HIPPA De-identification module available in the released 4.1.1 code and if so, is there any guideline available for its use?

visolveemr wrote on Tuesday, January 01, 2013:

Hello Kayode,

Yes, De-Identification is available with the latest release also.  Enable De-identification from globals.php.  Installation/Config info is available in the readme file from Documentation section. 

Thanks
Devi

samersebak wrote on Monday, August 22, 2016:

i need the same research work… any update.

mdsupport wrote on Thursday, August 25, 2016:

I do not think this feature was further explored. However if you have developer resources community could provide few options to explore.

OpenEMR development for Clinical research.

How can we devise a searchable relational database with a schema such that a patient’s signs & symptoms, examination findings, and lab results can be entered in a specific format along with the therapeutic treatment and outcome. In this way we query the database to assess clinical therapeutic effectiveness and compare treatment options.

In a similar way to where we have the patient_data file schema, we can have a comprehensive diagnostic schema with all possible signs & symptoms, etc AND have it set up in such a way that the user can input the data from an online health questionnaire and have the data automatically sorted into the database in the appropriate fields columns, rows, etc. In this way every column entry will correspond to the same sign or symptom or left blank if not applicable.

It should then be easier to query and compare ICD-10 diagnosis, Signs & symptoms along with quantifying severity with subjective questionnaires, and objective testing and then be able to track progress in association with specific therapeutic treatment.