Global Health IT professionals gather at OpenMRS Summit

Developers and users of free and open source software for use in health centers around the world have assembled in Silang this week for the sixth annual OpenMRS Implementers Meeting. The event is being held at the Y.C. James Yen Center at the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) and is hosted by the National Telehealth Center (NTHC) of the University of Philippines in Manila.

OpenMRS (Medical Record System) is a patient-centric medical record application that records medical interactions between health care providers and patients. It is a flexible technology platform that supports delivery of health care in some of the most challenging environments, and is an ideal tool for delivering IT services to the health sector because its design decisions are based on real needs, and is adaptable to the unique needs of users around the world. Being open source, all processes and software have been made transparent; and knowledge, skills, experiences and failure have been publicly documented.

OpenMRS is now in use on every continent in the world in countries including South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Uganda, Tanzania, Haiti, India, China, United States, Pakistan, the Philippines, and many other places. This work is supported in part by many international organizations including international and government aid groups, NGOs, as well as for-profit and nonprofit corporations.