INDIANAPOLIS - March 24, 2017 - PRLog -- OpenMRS®, a free and open source health IT software platform built by volunteers around the world, is marking its continued success in its second decade by releasing the OpenMRS annual report for 2016. The OpenMRS Annual Report documents the increasing global use of OpenMRS, highlights the achievements and growth of the open source community in the past year, improvements to the OpenMRS software, and the OpenMRS 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 is demonstrated by the large commitment of Health IT thought leaders who participate in the OpenMRS open source 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 assists in the delivery of healthcare for patients suffering from HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, Ebola, and diabetes. It is also used to provide maternal & child care as well as chronic disease. 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 underserved areas around the world. The result of this has been a dramatic increase in implementations worldwide, which was clearly represented at the largest ever Implementers' Conference in Uganda in December 2016, where over 400 implementers worldwide 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 highlights the efforts of the many individual and organizationally-sponsored contributors and the impact they have on the OpenMRS' strategic goals. This growth has led to a commitment to improved governance, strategic planning and transparency within the OpenMRS project. This is reflected in the 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," stated Indiana University's Dr. Theresa Cullen, an OpenMRS volunteer who helped lead the annual report effort.
The OpenMRS community has committed to utilizing a set of metrics to measure the health of the community as well as our impact in improving healthcare around the world. These metrics continue OpenMRS' commitment to strengthen its sustainability in the face of unprecedented international health challenges.
To learn more about OpenMRS or to receive more information about the annual report (including print-ready PDF copies), go online at om.rs/2016ar.
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, the Philippines, Haiti, Rwanda, Lesotho, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and many more.
For more information, visit http://openmrs.org/.
Contact
OpenMRS Inc.
***@openmrs.org
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The OpenMRS 2016 Annual Report documents the increasing global use of OpenMRS, highlighting the growth and impact of this open source community
March 24, 2017 at 16:54 PM EDT
