Best Practices for Integrating OpenMRS with Mobile Healthcare Applications

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I am working on a mobile healthcare application and looking for the best approach to integrate it with OpenMRS for seamless patient data management and real-time updates.

Some key challenges and considerations:

  1. FHIR vs. REST API – Which is more efficient for real-time data exchange between OpenMRS and a mobile app?
  2. Authentication & Security – Best practices for implementing OAuth 2.0 or other secure authentication methods.
  3. Offline Mode – How to ensure the mobile app can function effectively in low-connectivity areas and sync with OpenMRS once online.
  4. Scalability – Handling large-scale patient records while maintaining system performance.

Has anyone successfully implemented a mobile OpenMRS integration? Any recommendations on frameworks, SDKs, or common pitfalls to avoid?

I also found a Healthcare Software Development Services provider that specializes in EHR/EMR integrations—has anyone worked with similar companies for OpenMRS-based solutions?

Looking forward to insights from the community!

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  1. I’d say that REST API is less verbose (especially using custom representations) than FHIR so probably better suited for a mobile app.

  2. For OAuth 2.0 please refer to GitHub - openmrs/openmrs-module-oauth2login: Delegates user authentication to an OAuth 2.0 authentication provider. openmrs-core supports basic auth out of the box.

  3. Offline mode needs to be implemented within the app. There were numerous tries to achieve that including in our O3 UI, but AFAIK it’s no longer maintained. Please see also https://openmrs.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/docs/pages/152731650/Offline+and+Internet+Connection+FAQs

  4. There’s ongoing work on scalability and cluster deployments of OpenMRS. Please see Cluster and cloud support for OpenMRS - #16 by raff and TODAY: Share your Cloud Hosting Needs & Challenges on today's Platform Team call! 🌩️ - #2 by raff

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And just incase you have not seen this project, mostly maintained by Google Summer of Code Students: GitHub - openmrs/openmrs-contrib-android-client: Android client for OpenMRS

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