LinuxMedNews just posted the announcement that OpenEMR is now a certified EHR. Here’s the quote from their announcement:

It’s official! OpenEMR has passed all ONC certification tests as a fully qualified emr that can be used to attest for incentive moneys. The official posting: http://onc-chpl.force.com/ehrcert/EHRProductDetail?id=a0X30000003mNwTEAU&retURL= appeared on the website 2011/08/19. Congratulations to all involved! OpenEMR 4.1 should be ready for download in a few weeks.

This is a really big announcement for the open source ambulatory EHR community. A number of other open source EHR are certified, but they’re mostly for the hospital EHR space. So, it’s a great thing for OpenEMR to provide an open source EHR to the ambulatory space.

Plus, I have to admit that it’s pretty great that an open source community can pull together the funds to actually be certified. The programming and development time is one thing, but getting the $20-30k to be certified is a big deal that I’m sure took a lot of effort. I actually wish I knew more about the process they used to achieve the EHR certification.

Now, OpenEMR users better start digging into resources like Meaningful Use Mondays. EHR Certification is the first step, but showing meaningful use of that certified EHR is the next one.

Big thanks to an avid follower of OpenEMR – Jojo the HITMAN who informed me of the news.

The PDR Network in partnership with the iHealth Alliance has launched a new reporting system for adverse EHR events called EHREvent.org. Some of these adverse EMR events might include: software problems, inadequate user training, security breaches and near-misses. Here’s a short quote from the press release about the new website:

Using a standardized online format, EHRevent will collect reports from physicians and other health care providers who use EHRs, and create reports that medical societies, professional liability carriers and government agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will use to help educate providers on the potential challenges that EHR systems may bring.

The form breaks out the EHR safety events into 4 categories:
Incident: An EHR event that reached a patient, whether or not the patient was harmed.
Near Miss: An EHR event that is not believed to have impacted a patient.
Non-Patient Issue: An incident or near miss that impacted staff, employee(s), visitor(s).
Unsafe Condition: A circumstance that increases the probability of an EHR event.

I tried out there form and they had a lot of the EHR vendors listed, but there were a few missing. For example, it didn’t have the popular free open source EMR: OpenEMR. I wonder where they got their list. Especially since the list is changing so rapidly.

The form was relatively simple, but it did have like 9 screens that you had to answer. After the fifth I was feeling like it was a bit lengthy and I was just submitting a test. Although, when an adverse EHR event happens, users are usually pretty motivated to tell their story. At least they will be until they get to the page on the event reporting where they have to turn over all their personal information. I’m sure many will be turned off by that little detail.

One more quote about EHR and safety events from the press release:

Alan Lembitz, M.D., vice president of Patient Safety and Risk Management for COPIC Insurance Company, added “Our experience indicates that EHRs have the capacity either to induce or to reduce medical errors in very unique ways, and we have seen data that indicates that EHR adoption may reduce physician liability. It will be increasingly important to understand best practices to improve patient safety for EHRs and for their users, and EHRevent will help both.”

It’s going to be interesting to see how this evolves. Is this something that EMR vendors will support. It seems like e-MDs is on board since Michael Stearns, MD and CEO of e-MDs is quoted in the press release.

Over the years a lot of people have asked me where they could report a situation related to their EHR. This seems to be the best we have so far. As the press release points out, “Professional liability carriers who insure doctors against malpractice claims are among the strongest supporters of EHRevent.” Of course they are. The more information they can get the better they can do their job. We’ll see how many doctors and practices get on board and support this type of EHR reporting initiative.

Yes, I completely understand the irony of the title. That’s the beauty that is open source software. I’ve often talked about my fandom for open source software and it seems that open source EMR software is finally gaining some significant momentum.

As I was looking over the Open EMR website I stumbled upon a page created by the Open Source Medical Softare organization about the advantages of OpenEMR (an open source EMR package). I found the list interesting and so here’s my modified version of their list of OpenEMR advantages that should apply to any well done open source EMR:
Corporate buy-outs – I’m sure that Misys EMR users will appreciate this one. It’s never fun when your EMR software is bought out by someone else.
Bankruptcy – This is similar to a buy-out often, but sometimes can go even worse with prolonged periods with little support from your EMR vendor.
Vendor lock-in – Definitely isn’t in your EMR vendor’s best interest to make your data portable to another EMR system.
Sunsetting – If you’ve ever gone through this it’s time consuming and seems to provide little benefit (at least initially).
Duplication of engineering costs – Many people argue that EMR software should just adopt open APIs (which is a great thing), but it does meant that there’s often duplication of engineering costs.
Meta-applications built on substrate without asking permission: simulators, bio-surveillance, yet-to-be-conceived apps
No one vendor with enough engineering resources – I’m not sure open source EMR movements have beat out the engineering resources of a major EMR vendor, but it seems like it’s getting close to that point.
Corporate agenda not in harmony with customer needs – Could this really be?

I’m sure there are other reasons too. Although, it is interesting to consider some of the ways open source EMR software is able to solve some of the major pain points people feel when working with an EMR vendor.

A little while back I read an interesting EMR success story using the open source EMR appropriately named OpenEMR. The story is by Joe Holzer and I got his permission to republish it here for all to enjoy. You can find more about Joe on his website (not the normal website) or at his email im@holzerent.com I think you’ll enjoy his story and some of the unique ways he used OpenEMR to address some challenging problems along with his passion for open source EMR software:

I have implemented OpenEMR in a number of sites, and I advise on its use in their forums at Sourceforge.net. My wife Lynne was my first “client”, and her use of FREE OpenEMR allowed her to eliminate all need for my services as her business office manager, as well as all clearinghouse costs, as it prepares both X12 and CMS 1500 directly.

Because she has a house call practice, and G3 dependability is a joke, I converted the Linux web-based OpenEMR to stand-alone on her windows tablet notebook. That works especially well with the VPN I used, since her biller is at another location entirely, but can do the billing whenever Lynne is at a hotspot without Lynne even having to be aware of it. And every night it backs itself up to our server, which is always accessible by the biller for looking at information which is no more than 24 hours old.

What Lynne gets in her practice is first and foremost the ability to eliminate all the lugging of paper records and the risk of their damage by the elements, etc., to say nothing of the nightly HIPAA backup security which paper could never afford. She uses the hotspots to connect to Allscripts for her FREE e-Rx so she can get the Medicare 2% incentive for 2009, which was simple to setup in OpenEMR both because it is open source, so can be made to do whatever the user wants for greatest efficiency and effectivity for their individual practice, and because it is designed for flexibility in configuration. In fact, the latest version, 3.1.0 just released, is the ONLY EMR system I am aware of which is operable in the native language of the user on a shared system with multiple users. So an inner-city clinic with primarily latino population, but also english speakers, need not have ALL its staff be bi-lingual. And yet it is STILL FREE.

You can see some of the support I have provided others as a volunteer at the OpenEMR forums at Sourceforge.net as ideaman911.

That ANY intelligent user would pay for a proprietary system merely makes me question their grades in economics. Checkout oemr.org for details.