Secure Patient Portal

OpenEMR Development
1

zhhealthcare wrote on Wednesday, September 04, 2013:

Hi,

We have implemented VPN in Patient Portal. Any OpenEMR, without a public IP, can use this functionality to establish connection to Portal. During the registration process, an internal IP and certificate will be generated and stored in the Portal side. The certificate can be downloaded after completing the registration process. The user needs to setup VPN connection from EMR to Portal using this certificate. OpenVPN can be used to for this purpose. After the connection is established, all the data transfer between the Portal and the EMR will be done through the VPN tunnel.

Git Hub Path:

Thanks & Regards
ZH HealthCare

2

bradymiller wrote on Friday, September 06, 2013:

Awesome,

Haven’t looked at the code yet, but this is a huge deal for MU2 since should allow a secure avenue to get a live patient portal up.

-brady
OpenEMR

3

bradymiller wrote on Tuesday, September 10, 2013:

Hi,

Placed review on github. Looking forward to next revision.

thanks,
-brady
OpenEMR

4

zhhealthcare wrote on Friday, December 06, 2013:

ZHHealthcare
Dear Friends,
I want to take this opportunity to thank you for supporting the ZH Patient Portal Services using www.mydocsportal.com. From the start of this service we have endeavored to constantly to provide OPenEMR users with all the features that the commercial companies provide to their customers. It is our belief that not only have we not fallen behind in that attempt but also have given more features than the ones the others provide. A good example is the video consultation feature.

I write to you today to update you on an enhancement available to you.

Heretofore we have been using a Static IP based technology to address the connectivity from an OpenEMR instance to the Patient Portal. However this system was not considered secure enough by many in the OpenEMR forum and the industry. Therefore we are now moving to a VPN (Virtual Private Network) based technology. This technology has the benefit of being more secure and also enabling users without a static IP to connect their instance of OpenEMR to the Portal.

The VPN Based Patient Portal will go live on 12/07/2013, Saturday at 12:00 AM EST. We will be phasing out support for IP based connectivity soon. We therefore urge all of you to move to the new connectivity using VPN. Please install the application following the step-by-step instruction document attached and send an email to portal@zhservices.com letting us know when we can call to help you with the transition. This support will be provided for free.

Thanking You,
Shahzad Hashim
shah@zhservices.com
703-340-8065,
Implementation Head – ZH Healthcare

5

bradymiller wrote on Friday, December 06, 2013:

Hi Shahzad,

Please include the instruction set for Linux; note there is one for linux from your previous instruction set here:
http://www.open-emr.org/wiki/index.php/Patient_Portal#VPN_Security_Configuration

Please also update that wiki page as needed (and feel free to place your letter there also in that section).

Also, let us know what the default link should be in globals and ensure still forward from the ssh.* link that we recommended in the patches, if possible.

thanks for this awesome upgrade in your portal,
-brady
OpenEMR

6

manxmen wrote on Sunday, December 29, 2013:

Hi Guys,

How does Patient Portal VPN work with Multi-Sites.

In the primary site the “Download VPN Zip” button appears in Portal Globals and downloads a zip file.

In a multi-site the “Download VPN Zip” button also appears in Portal Globals but nothing happens/downloads.

Thanks
Terry

7

zhhealthcare wrote on Monday, December 30, 2013:

Hi,

VPN will handle the multi sites, but presently there is no option to set it through the front end. We are working on that. If you presently have the multi site environment and use this feature contact us directly, we can help you on that.

Regards
Eldho
ZH Healthcare