Open EMR newbie here. I have openemr v 3.1.0 up and running on a hosted server (GoDaddy) running a LAMP stack. Just playing around with it, everything seems to be working well. I plan to adapt it to support my solo practice as a psychologist. Based on preliminary evaluation, I think it will meet my needs well. However, I’m stuck on a few setup details:
1. How can I delete records? Specifically I need to delete some dummy patients (with associated notes and such) and a fake location that I set up while evaluating the software. I read elsewhere in these forums that this can be done as a “superuser” of some sort, but I can’t see how to log myself in as a superuser. Is there a way to do this without rebuilding the entire database?
2. How do I change the default settings for the calendar? For example, I want the appointment time to default to 60 minutes instead of 15, and to change the hours in the work day.
3. Is there a way to completely disable the prescription feature? As a psychologist, I do not need it, and don’t want to take any risk of having someone hack into it and misuing it.
4. I have read over the manuals in the documentation wiki, but still don’t understand:
a: How does one upload an external document (say a scanned document or e-mail) into the file system, so that it tracks as part of the medical record, and
b. I don’t quite understand the office work flow from authorization and appointment to encounter to billing sheet to X.12 file. Is there a document somewhere that lays out this flow in simple terms, so that I can better comprehend the logic?
I have read the security concerns about using GoDaddy hosted servers elsewhere in this forum. For now, I’m just doing final evaluation and setup…I’ll look at upgrading ecurity in a later step, before I go live.
I suspect that the answers to these questions are in the documentation somewhere, but I’ve just overlooked the correct page. If you can point me to documentation that covers these points, I’d be very grateful.
I have some experience with SCO UNIX, but my knowledge of sql is minimal, at best…
I’m sure I’ll have many more questions as I go along, so I thank you now for your patience.
1) Logging in as ‘admin’ user will give you these privileges. Can also test this out in the online demos:
2) Check out this thread for an answer:
3) This is something that will be available in future releases. There are ways to hide the Rx link in the calendar via the code if you know php. As a philosophical issue, if your worried about somebody hacking into it I’m thinking the patient’s records getting exposed (especially psychiatric) are more damaging than prescriptions, which can be done without an EMR. OpenEMR is not secure enough for “open” internet; please consider using https protocol and securing access to it with security certificates. Also, putting on GoDaddy… (I’m forcing myself to not say anything, you’re an adult, it’s your choice, and I’ll focus on your questions, especially since it seems like your gonna migrate to a secure server when go live)
4) Documents uploads are done in Patient/Client->Medical Records->Documents. This is where you upload patient specific documents
For billing, here are some good links to help out:
Thank you. That looks to be what I need. I’ll work my way through it this evening and see how it all comes out. I suspected that I had somehow missed some documentation pages, and that was the case.
As to the security issue, I am using https with no problems. I’m not sure I understand your objections to GoDaddy? Is it that particular hosting company that you object to, or hosting providers in general? I am very much concerned about the security of my mental health records (which is the main reason I’m doing away with paper charts) and am interested in learning which hosting providers are considered to be more secure, and why?
As to the possibility of misuse of the prescription feature, I am more concerned about a staff member misusing it than someone from outside hacking in. I realize that I have a measure of control over that via the password system. Overall, it’s a small worry, but one best avoided if possible.
I have hosted servers in-house in the past, and don’t want to take on the aggravation of doing that again. I prefer to learn and maintain my own software, but would just as soon have someone with a secure data center take care of the hardware for me.
I still can’t find a link to delete that spare facility I created. Am I simply overlooking it? I tried renaming it to “Do Not Use,” but that seems rather inelegant, somehow…
Still curious about the community’s thoughts on security…
If you open your OpenEMR to the internet, then you really need to consider setting up client side certificates (this is basically an extension of your https protocol and will mean only certain clients/computers can get to your OpenEMR site). The simple login/password screen can not stop online hackers.
If you place it on an outside server, you need to ensure that server will be secure on their end also (meaning, if somebody hacks into another website that happens to also be served on your outside server, you are also now hacked).
Perhaps others can weigh in on secure hosting providers to consider.
Regarding deletion of facilities, looks like they can’t be, kind of a bummer. By unchecking the service location box, it will at least not annoy you on the calendar.
As it turns out, the default time period parameter in globals.php only moves the ticmarks on the calendar display, so that it presents hourly time blocks, rather than quarter-hour ones (I’m using the Outlook option). I’m going to change it back to 15, because I think that looks nicer.
What I want to do is change the default duration (minutes) presented in the make appointment dialog box. It currently presents 15 minutes, which can be changed. I’d like it to default to 60. A small thing, granted, but it would slightly reduce the chance of data entry errors in my situation.