thompsk wrote on Friday, October 22, 2010:
Does anyone know if 4.0 is getting close for beta or RC testing? I have a hospital that has waited to go live on an EMR and wants OpenEMR 4.x. If you want someplace where they are willing to test please let me know.
Ken
bradymiller wrote on Wednesday, October 27, 2010:
hey,
Development’s been pretty active. Hopefully will branch 4.0 and freeze for bug fixing in a month or so (the bug testing phase last a month or so). If you want to test it, can get daily development version via github or cvs or the developer appliance. We also have a daily build here: http://www.openmedsoftware.org/wiki/OpenEMR_Downloads#Unstable_Development_Releases
-brady
acmoore wrote on Wednesday, October 27, 2010:
Brady - Do you anticipate that 4.0 will contain everything needed for openemr to apply for meaningful use certification?
Thanks,
-Andy
bradymiller wrote on Monday, November 01, 2010:
Andy,
Depends how long we postpone the 4.0 release. Things have been so busy on the development side, just don’t want to divert any resources to starting a release cycle. When things cool off, will then plan a branch/release cycle. Although lots of progress is being made on the MU front, I’m skeptical we’ll be able to get it all in the next release (unless we postpone the 4.0 release until the end of the year or so).
-brady
thompsk wrote on Tuesday, December 14, 2010:
Brady or any development leader:
I appreciate all of the hard work that you have done to make OpenEMR work. 4.x looks to be even better and I know that Meaningful Use is a concern with certification but I believe that will not be an overall deal-breaker by US DHHS in the long term.
My concern is more fundamental, business related. I know I started looking in May 2010 to see how 4.x was going. At that time it was going to be around the end of the year before a release would be “official.” In Oct 2010 I popped back up to see how all is going and from everything I have read it looks like it is going well.
It is now mid Dec 2010. Do we have an ETA on when 4.x will be “official?”
I am definitely not trying to press or complain. Not at all. I am just trying to plan the operations efforts for my hospital. We need an EMR and I like the fact that OpenEMR is “very” open and we can really customize as needed as well as easily get to the data.
I am raising this as a concern because I saw another post today that said basically if you download this version and change a few items you have 4.x code. I am a little concerned about going that route. If I knew the “official” release is coming then I could plan for it but right now it is an unknown.
Any thoughts on an ETA for 4.x “official” release? Or even a really good RC release?
Thanks
Ken
bradymiller wrote on Wednesday, December 15, 2010:
hey,
The development code is rather stable now, and if technically savvy could consider using current development codebase as your starting point. We’re in a position where high-yield functionality is on the brink of being added to the code base (such as e-prescribing and potentially clinical decision rules, of which can generally not be added on as a patch after a official release with our current patching mechanism), but we’ve gotten the code stable enough to consider a “emergency” release in a couple days if somebody steps up and pays to get OpenEMR certified. This is also compounded by the obvious fact that issuing an official release will take away from limited resources that are going towards MU development (this is my own opinion; am assuming the community agrees with this position, but they may not).
The best way to get the most current code is via git, which is described how to use with openemr here. If you decide to pick a “point” to start from the development codebase, just rec asking how stable we think the codebase is at that time (if we don’t have an official release out in the meantime):
http://www.openmedsoftware.org/wiki/Git_for_dummies
-brady
tmccormi wrote on Wednesday, December 15, 2010:
The current development code is being used in live clinical settings and billing service setting at 4 of my customers without any issues. The certification process will need to be based on an official release, one way or another, but I don’t see any high risk in using the pre-release 4.0 code now if you need it.
The only “cost” is more frequent updates due to bug fixes and minor enhancements. When it’s an official/certified product then the ‘upgrade’ will be a snap.
It is, of course, possible something could get broken, but everyone is paying very close attention to that sort of show-stopper issue… so I wouldn’t recommend 4.0 for a practice that does not have a solid technical support model (not just the community).
-Tony