Text Messaging Integration

OpenEMR Development
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jmadnick wrote on Tuesday, August 16, 2011:

I read on http://www.oemr.org/wiki/Sms_and_Email_Notification_Howtos that there is integration only to Clickatell and TM4B; though I understand email to SMS over SMTP to wireless carrier public gateways is also used. In the US, the SMTP approach is attractive because it’s free. Stil, it seems that the options are limited and only for one-way messaging (You can send a patient reminder but you can’t get a response from the patient.)
I have developed a service that supports 2-way SMS connectivity to multiple SMS providers through a REST API based on the GSMA OneAPI standard (http://www.gsmworld.com/oneapi/). The benefit of this approach is that you are not dependent on any one provider. If quality suffers, or pricing or features change, you can move to another provider without having to rewrite your application. You just get a new number or you can even port a number between the back end providers.
Currently there is connectivity to Twilio, SMSified, Nexmo, and TSG Global, and the architecture supports expansion to others.
So to my question: Is there interest in having greater SMS connectivity options for OpenEMR? Without getting into cost specifics, it will be more expensive than sending over SMTP because that is free, but still very low cost.

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bradymiller wrote on Thursday, September 08, 2011:

Hi jmadnick,

Sorry for delayed response. Had this on my queue to respond to this for awhile now. I’m guessing any new ways to communicate reminders would be very useful. Any thoughts on how to integrate this into OpenEMR? There are currently two different methodologies for sending reminders in OpenEMR. The one based on the HowTo you posted above and one based on Patient Reminders from the CDR (clinical decision rules) engine with a library script here : /library/reminders.php . The difference in both methods here is that the above method from the HowTo you posted above is for appointments while the other method is for clinical reminders (note that this is simply because there has not been enough time/resources to add an appointment reminder feature to the CDR engine (note the structure has been placed but much more time/resources would be needed to build this feature).

-brady

OpenEMR