OpenMRS Releases 2016 Annual Report - Shows Explosive Growth of Open Source EHR

OpenMRS community surpasses nearly every metric from 2015 as documented in their second annual report, demonstrating increased effectiveness in solving many problems around healthcare delivery in low-resource areas around the world.

INDIANAPOLIS — March 23, 2017 — OpenMRS®, a free and open source health IT software platform built by volunteers around the world, is marking the start of its second decade by releasing its second annual report, for 2016. The document highlights the achievements of the open source community in the past year, improvements to the OpenMRS software, and lays out the strategic goals for 2017.

For over 10 years, people around the world have leveraged OpenMRS to improve health status and achieve health equity through the use of health information technology. OpenMRS is a global leader in open technologies and open standards in healthcare. That leadership has led to international recognition by both technology and health-focused organizations and has been demonstrated by the large gathering of Health IT thought leaders who participate in its community.

OpenMRS started in a single clinic in Western Kenya 10 years ago. Since then it has grown into a global health IT solution with implementations in more than 80 countries and translations into multiple languages. Based on documented reports, OpenMRS is currently in use in 1,845 locations around the world. Local health care providers have leveraged OpenMRS to improve medical care for over 6.3 million patients. In addition to primary care, the software is employed to assist in the delivery of healthcare for patients suffering from HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, ebola, and diabetes. It is also used in to provide maternal & child care. More use cases are being continually developed by the open source community.

“I see our community members continue to demonstrate their deep commitment to our core mission and values by working with low-resource and under served areas around the world. The result of which has been a dramatic increase in implementations worldwide, which was clearly represented at the largest ever Implementers’ Conference in Uganda just one month ago, where over 400 implementers world-wide gathered at Speke Resort in Kampala,” said Dr. Paul Biondich, a co-founder of the project and executive director of OpenMRS Inc., the nonprofit organization chartered to support the project.

The report includes a snapshot of the community’s nine software releases in 2016, as well as the rapidly-increasing growth of its base of volunteers. It highlighted the efforts of the many individual and organizationally-sponsored contributors and the impact they have had OpenMRS’ strategic goals. This growth has led to the need for improved governance and strategic planning for the OpenMRS project. In order to manage the extraordinary growth of the project, a series of strategic took place during the year. This led to set of six strategic goals that the OpenMRS community will undertake during 2017.

“Building on our previous successes, we believe that the OpenMRS community will continue to thrive in 2017- we look forward to you being a part of that journey” according to Indiana University’s Dr. Theresa Cullen, an OpenMRS volunteer who helped lead the annual report effort.

Beyond the publication of this annual report, the OpenMRS community has committed to utilizing a set of metrics to measure both the health of the community as well as its impact in improving healthcare around the world. These metrics, together with regular public reports and engagement with the community, continue the endeavor of growth for OpenMRS as it strengthens its sustainability in the face of unprecedented international health challenges.

More information about the annual report, as well as print-ready PDF copies, are available online HERE.

About OpenMRS

OpenMRS started in 2004 as a free and open source medical record system for developing countries. A volunteer organization, its community nurtures a growing worldwide network of individuals and organizations all focused on creating medical record systems and an implementation network to allow system development self reliance within resource constrained environments. Since launching in a single clinic in Kenya, OpenMRS has been implemented throughout the world, including places like South Africa, Philippines, Haiti, Rwanda, Lesotho, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and many more. For more information, visit http://openmrs.org/.