The 2021 OpenMRS Implementers’ Conference was an important and enriching experience for all of us. We listened, we learned and we came out more inspired than ever! As our final touch on this topic, we would like to introduce you to the most interesting Unconference Sessions that took place during the event. Each session lasted 45-60 minutes, and all of the participants had a voice in choosing the most exciting ones through voting.
OpenMRS & OpenHIE: FHIR Roadmap, FHIR IGs, & QA
Session 7: OpenMRS & OpenHIE: FHIR Roadmap, FHIR IGs, & QA
This session was dedicated to various topics connected to OpenHIE (Health Information Exchanges) and FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources). Key points mentioned during this session:
- FHIR Roadmap and Partnership with OpenHIE
- The opportunities for collaborations
- FHIR Squad input into OpenHIE specification and publication
- OHIE Architecture Specification
- Digital Square FHIR primers
- FHIR Squad project overview
- FHIR IG for OpenMRS
- QA
COVID Package: Vaccinations, Digital Vaccine Certifications, Integrations
Session 1:COVID Package: Vaccinations, Digital Vaccine Certifications, Integrations
COVID-19 has been spreading around the world for 2 years now and it doesn’t look like it’s going to end soon. Countless organizations are still trying to respond faster to new disease outbreaks, to improve the available information tools and, above all, to reduce the death rate of the virus in people who are even more vulnerable due to concomitant diseases such as HIV.
COVID-19 modules have been developed in KenyaEMR and now are monitoring infected people living with HIV for vaccine uptakes, new infections and overall management. Currently it’s not a national testing system, but a facility testing system integrated in KenyaEMR. Medical staff can flag a patient as eligible for vaccine, then clinician can fill the form through a covid vaccination form, informing if that person is partial or fully vaccinated. Information is provided in the reports, which are in demand transfer to the national data warehouse, to get data on vaccination and care for people living with HIV and COVID-19 infection. The system is very dynamic and flexible to enhance. Current release with COVID-19 module is primarily based on existing vaccines surveillance, so in the future other implementers can adapt it to their own needs.
OMRS Evaluation
The goal of that session was to answer a big question: “given broad use of OpenMRS and many needs/priorities across implementers, should we develop a squad & toolkits that can support decentralized evaluations?”
The plan is to co-create Evaluation Toolkits that can be adapted and used by sites (it’s called decentralized evaluations), to generate evidence about OpenMRS. Evidence here means results from evaluations that can help learn things like:
- does OpenMRS cause improvements in quality of care and in patient outcomes?
- do we improve OpenMRS UI?
- how do we showcase successes?
- Etc…
The topic was also broadly discussed during Lighting Talks. Link to the presentation: Lightning Talk – Evaluation Toolkits
Promoting collaboration among countries & organizations: How to attract technical expertise and properly resource our community teams working on shared assets?
Session 11: Promoting collaboration among countries & organizations
The main point of this session was to discuss problems, questions and possible solutions regarding collaboration among many different organizations from around the world. There were a lot of concerns about the efficiency of working with implementers that have incompatible timelines and a variety of different needs. The participants also searched together for an answer to the following question: How to attract technical expertise and properly resource our community teams working on shared assets? During this session such issues were talked through. The participants actively asked questions on a chat, so that anyone could bring their apprehensions and ideas to the table and explore them together.
OpenMRS 3.0 Development:Getting Ready for the Hackathon
Session 15: OpenMRS 3.0 Development:Getting Ready for the Hackathon
The meeting was focused on preparations for the Hackathon. Hackathon is a design event dedicated to people involved with software development. Its main goal is to create software or hardware in a certain period of time. During this session tasks for participants of Hackathon were assigned. It was also a time of sharing ideas on what kind of project to undertake for the event.
Some of the propositions:
- Service Delivery Queues and Patient Lists
- Building and Customizing OHRI Forms
- Developing a SPA
- Value_text Equivalent Widget for the OpenMRS 3 Dashboard Vitals to be Used to Show Recent Discharge or Outpatient Summaries
- Migrating Dashboard Widgets to Micro-Frontends (currently in Angular)
- Fixing OHRI Specific OpenMRS Issues
Integrations: Ozone HIS, OpenELIS 2.x update
Session 13: 3.x Integrations: Ozone HIS, OpenELIS 2.x update
OpenELIS is an Open Source. Point of Benefit framework outlined particularly to bolster labs and the lab workflow. It highlights a strong, adaptable, web based architecture – simple network without need for the Internet. The software is based on characterized universal measures, to permit organized interoperability with a wide assortment of frameworks. OpenELIS could be a self-contained application, modern modules/functions can be included easily. It can be a standalone framework in one lab or portion of a venture level organised with interoperability between EMR, quiet statistical frameworks, dashboard and other devices. OpenELIS covers the full laboratory testing workflow, including all 3 phases: pre-analytical, analytical, and post-analytical. First version of the open-source was implemented in many clinics around the world, becoming a national network in Mauritius. That being said, the 2.0 version is much better. Here are the reasons why:
It plays an important role in Mauritius, being a main system control on border control package (test registry application), CHL Reference Laboratory (more than 4k Covid test per day) and works in clinics and hospitals.
The software is constantly developing and here are a new releases that were launched in 2020-2021:
And those that will be launched in the near future:
All information comes from: 2021-12 OpenMRS Conference – OE 2.x Session
Connect for Life Distribution
Connect for Life is a platform that allows patients and medical workers to communicate in real-time. The session started with a showcase of a demo version of Connect for Life. Features such as the mechanics of messaging, phone calls, different types of messages and call flow designer were introduced. The participants then discussed the following question: How can Connect for Life best contribute to the community? The final part of the session revolved around functionality of WhatsApp in regard to Connect for Life and additional requirements that have to be met in order to make use of this platform.
Want to know more?
To find out more about OpenMRS Conferences, you can look here.
