Using OpenEMR for academic purposes

Management and Administration
1

Hi,

I am a Health Information Management student and am in the process of creating a data analysis organization at my university. I’m interested in using OpenEMR for my classmates and me to practice with SQL. Could anyone point me in the right direction on how to get started with that? Additionally, I would like to practice interoperability standards such as ANSI ASC X12 and HL7. Does anyone know if it’s possible to practice with those standards?

Thank you.

Jesus Calvo

2

Hello @JesusCalvo and welcome to the OpenEMR community. I hope you find all the answers you’re looking for. Since this your first post I will assume you are not very familiar with the OpenEMR project or the resources available. Let me give some links to articles in the OpenEMR wiki which may help in your mission.

Yes, OpenEMR is capable of helping you with all those things. To run through your list of items:

  • getting started: not sure if you mean the very beginning step of installing OpenEMR? If so, here’s the tip of the iceberg :slight_smile:

https://www.open-emr.org/wiki/index.php/OpenEMR_Installation_Guides

  • The default OpenEMR database is a MySQL database and if you install a database front- end such as adminer or phpMySQL you can have direct access to run queries and manipulate the database structure itself.
    Here’s a wiki article that looks at the most basic beginning of this is. Though note that using the main menu to access the database is obsolete; you’ll need to use the standalone DBMS you installed.

https://www.open-emr.org/wiki/index.php/HOWTO:_Create_And_Use_Database_Views

Then there’s this, which may have evolved in the 2 versions of OpenEMR that have been developed since it was written.
https://www.open-emr.org/wiki/index.php/Database_Structure

The interoperability standards are all addressed and used to varying degrees in OpenEMR, but it’s too intricate to discuss fully in this post. Here’s some clue about how you can do some of your own focussed research.

The OpenEMR org has three main repositories of information on the project:

  • this forum in which you can find the answers given to other users when they asked questions. Search for topics with the search tool:

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  • The OpenEMR wiki, which is the static repository of documentation. Here’s a forum post talking about finding your way around the wiki:

  • git-hub, for the developer’s view of OpenEMR, if you’re into that. Just go to the wiki and search on that term, then start burrowing through the links!

I know this is a lot to digest at once! If/ when you develop specific questions come on back here and ask them, in the posting category most closely related to your topic.

I’m looking forward to hearing from you!
Best- Harley

1 Like
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Hi @htuck

Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a nice informative answer. I really appreciate all the resources you have shared with me. I think you have provided me plenty to start and learn more about Open EMR.

Jesus

4

You’re v welcome @JesusCalvo
The best way to get help from the forum is to ask specific questions-- if you ask general questions that require a lot of information to answer few people will reply. So research your topic for a general understanding about how OpenEMR does things then ask here for particulars.
It is fine if you do not know how to do something, for example write a query in MySQL. But first have looked on the general internet and get an idea of what might work then ask here for how to do it correctly.
Best- Harley