EMR Functional Requirements: Looking for guidelines/standards

Hi Community (CC @wanyee @aojwang @antoniomacheve @ssmusoke @angshuonline @pradiptakundu @michaelbontyes @jteich @hamish @ddesimone @jamesm),

Are there any EMR Functional Requirements that you know of that your organization (or others) use to evaluate an EMR? E.g. whether it contains the requirements your organization or Ministry of Health expects from an EMR?

For example, back in ~2010 the Kenyan Ministry of Medical Services published this guide to EMR Functional Requirements. I’m looking for more recent documents similar to this one. https://www.ghdonline.org/uploads/Standards_and_Guidelines_for_Electronic_Medical_Record_Systems.pdf

My goal is to build up a knowledge hub of EMR requirements that we can compare OpenMRS to. It’s not like this will magically conjure up dev resources to mend all the gaps, but I’d like to be more aware of where the gaps are compared to what the market is looking for.

One other source I’m looking at is the Digital Square Maturity Model for Global Goods, and the WHO’s Classification of Digital Health Interventions. However these don’t go into EMR-specific requirements.

I’m also looking at HIMSS’ O-EMRAM from a high-level.

Any of the resources mentioned here help?

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The Bahmni Big Functional Outline, which is referenced in the “List of every EHR feature ever needed” thread above, has a pretty wide range of functionality needs for administrative, clinical, decision support, ancillary, and some lower-level operations in inpatient and ambulatory settings. It doesn’t go into deep detail of any one function, and isn’t intended as a definition of requirements for each function, but it’s a decent start to defining the range of features. Also linked here: Bahmni Big Functional Outline

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Thank you @jteich!! “BFO”, great acronym. I’ve requested access :wink: :slight_smile:

Shared with you. Also changed the permissions so anyone with the link should be able to view it.

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Just also saw the excellent page that @gsluthra has been maintaining in the Bahmni wiki:

EHR Standards across various countries: https://bahmni.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/BAH/pages/2983165963/EHR+Standards+across+various+countries

1 Electronic Health Record (EHR) Standards - 2016 India (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare) Provides a structured overview of the key EHR standards with respect to Indian healthcare system

2 EHR Standards for India India (National Resource Center for EHR Standards) List of standards approved (or under development) for India, maintained by NRCeS, CDAC.

3 ABDM Policy Standards Documents India (National Health Authority) A series of documents for India’s National eHealth Strategy (evolving standard).

4 Privacy Guidelines for the Implementation of the Philippine Health Information Exchange Philippines Prescribe the procedures and guidelines that ensure the protection of the privacy of a patient.

5 WHO Legal Frameworks for Health WHO (Global) [2012] Based on the findings of the second global survey on eHealth.

6 Overview of national laws on EHRs EU Members Overview of EHR laws across EU Member states

7 National laws on EHRs in UK UK UK specific national laws for EHRs

8 SAFER Guides US Department of Health These 9 guides identify recommended practices to optimize the safety and safe use of EHRs.

9 ISO 18308:2011: Requirements for an electronic health record architecture ISO (Global) The requirements are formulated to ensure that these EHRs are faithful to the needs of healthcare delivery, are clinically valid and reliable, are ethically sound, meet prevailing legal requirements, support good clinical practice and facilitate data analysis for a multitude of purposes.

10 Outpatient Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (O-EMRAM) HIMSS (US/Global) The HIMSS Outpatient Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (O-EMRAM) is used to assess EMR implementation for outpatient facilities of hospitals and health systems globally, guiding the data-driven advancement of facilities through EMR technology.

11 HIPAA US Department of Health The HIPAA Privacy Rule establishes national standards to protect individuals’ medical records and other individually identifiable health information (collectively defined as “protected health information”) and applies to health plans, health care clearinghouses, and those health care providers that conduct certain health care transactions electronically.

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ONC’s HealthIT.gov site is probably much more relevant than HIPAA to US standards for EHRs. They’re the ones who publish the actual certification guidelines inter alia.

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