Questions about OpenEMR

Day-to-Day Users
1

blurngr wrote on Monday, September 11, 2006:

Hi Everyone!

I’m an entrepreneur that owns a small consulting company that specializes in linux development.  We typically prefer languages other than PHP / Perl, but that’s another story.

A local 501(c)3 has approached us to help them setup their network in a way that they can expand-as-necessary with minimal up-front cost.  I’ve recommended (for better or worse) a solution based on either MirrorMed/ClearHealth or OpenEMR.  [FreeMED was another contender, but their help forums and commercial support are a bit scant.]  I’m leaning toward OpenEMR on the basis that the forums are semi-active, the public demo actually works (MirrorMed and ClearHealth have demos that fail while working with them).

I had a few questions, if you could spare a few minutes:

1.  It looks like there hasn’t been a release since Feb '06.  This appears more-or-less on-par with many Open Source projects.
  A.  I’m curious what features are planned for the next release?
  B.  What is a typical development cycle?
  C.  I see that Rod is a significant contributor.  Who else develops on the project?
  D.  Who maintains the project?

2.  [Technical]
  A.  Is there any plan to move to PHP5 or MySQL 5?  PHP 4 was released … Feb 27, 2000.  MySQL 4 was released … Mar 25, 2003.  [I realize that going with the latest / greatest technology is not always a good thing … but being 6 years behind is also not a good thing.]
  B.  Which version of FreeB is being used?  I understand from Fred Trotter that FreeB 2.0 is available.  [It appears that FreeB is version 0.11 being used.]
  C.  Is there a complete setup guide anywhere?  Including dependencies… etc…

3.  [Features]
  A.  There has been some discussion on the forums to be able to handle drug interactions within OpenEMR.  Is this still on the table?
  B.  Can you search for patients from DOB/SSN/parent/guardian name/DOV/diagnosis/last provider seen/etc?
  C.  Is there HL7 or X12 integration possibilities?  Labs/etc??
  D.  Continuity Reminders?
  E.  Patient Management Goals?
  F.  How difficult is it to change / add reports?
  G.  Patient Education Modules?  I saw something about this on the mailing lists …
  H.  Multiple Fee Schedules?
  I.  How easy to change the Super Bill?

Thanks for your help!  Working on trying out the VMware appliance at the moment.

–
Anthony

2

sunsetsystems wrote on Monday, September 11, 2006:

Hi Anthony, thanks for visiting!

Regarding your questions:

1. Actually the last release was March.  Development is continuous and right now I’d suggest getting the current code from CVS (we keep it pretty clean) rather than from a formal release.  Releases generally happen when someone (usually me) has some time betweek projects, and I don’t seem to have had much of that recently.

1A: A whole bunch of stuff has already gone in since 2.8.1.  Listing it all is perhaps the most time-consuming part of putting out a release, but you can get an idea by reviewing posts in the Developer’s forum, or reviewing the CVS logs.

1B:  We don’t have a set cycle.

1C and 1D: There’s a handful of us.  Again, check the Developer’s forum and also the maintainers listed on the main project page.

2A: I think most of the MySQL 5 and PHP5 compatibility work is already in CVS, but I’ll have occasion to check it in the next week or two.

2B: In spite of the naming, FreeB 2 does not appear to have much in common with FreeB 1.x, and does not satisfy the needs of OpenEMR.  1.x has in effect been maintained as if it were part of OpenEMR.  However our intent is to eventually eliminate it entirely, enhancing OpenEMR to generate billing and track A/R natively.

2C: There’s some pretty good setup information on oemr.org.

3A: Nobody has volunteered to fund this yet.

3B: DOB and SSN yes, the others could be easily added.

3C: X12 billing and remits are done, lab interfaces can be done if there is funding.

3D, 3E, 3G, 3H: No but these can be added.

3F: I do this all the time for clients.

3I: Very easy, to the degree that the Fee Sheet applies.

Cheers,

Rod
www.sunsetsystems.com

3

blurngr wrote on Sunday, September 17, 2006:

Rod,

Thanks for your speedy response.  I just got done with a full day with two of my programmers downloading, installing, configuring, and reviewing OpenEMR and ClearHealth for this client of mine.

Overall, I have to say that we’re big fans of OpenEMR [after spending about 8 hours with ClearHealth, one of my talented developers turned off his machine in disgust, not being able to get either RC2 or RC3 to function for more than a few minutes.]  We did manage to find a few “bugs” in the CVS code, none of which were show stoppers.

Just for reference, Brady Miller has some of the best installation documentation on the project (IMHO) with his screen shots of the Virtual Machine.  Personally, I wouldn’t use Mandriva for any server related task, but the point is certainly there.  I’m hoping to have a similar (less comprehensive) VM done for Fedora Core 5 shortly.

Anyway, thanks for the information!

4

timjowers wrote on Sunday, October 29, 2006:

Can I install php4 to be able to run OpenEMR despite php5 already being installed (Fedora Core 6)? Any pointers?

Also, where is a list of OpenEMR consutlants?

Thanks,
TimJowers, http://www.serviza.com/ - Open Source Hardware! Open Source Business! Open Source Works!