Impact Case Studies and Knowledge Transfer Case Studies

AHRQ-funded studies in the 1990s on electronic order writing and computer reminders helped to inform and inspire a growing, global open-source medical record system community known as OpenMRS. This community is impacting health care delivery in many developing countries, as well as in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

AHRQ-funded research by William Tierney, MD, and his colleagues at the Regenstrief Institute in Indianapolis, Indiana, identified factors that were important to the design and successful implementation of electronic medical record (EMR) systems. They used this research as a central contribution towards the development of OpenMRS, a multi-institution, nonprofit collaborative, which produces a free medical record system platform over the Internet for developing countries.

OpenMRS enables the design of customized medical records systems with no programming knowledge necessary. Medical and systems analysis knowledge, however, is required. It is a common platform upon which medical informatics efforts in developing countries can be built. As of 2011, more than 50 countries are using the system, which was first envisioned in late 2004 and first implemented in Eldoret, Kenya, in 2006.