Hi everybody! My name is Denis Donici, I am a sysadmin at Alpine Homecare located in Denver, Colorado, USA.
The management of my company has to switch from Excel spreadsheet to a complete EHR solution. So they are in looks for EMR and Practice Management software. So far, they checked
https://www.clearcareonline.com It’s a cloud-based service provider targeting home care business in states. They are charging a decent amount and their solution is proprietary(vendor lock-in). Believe it or not, there is a lot of money in the home care industry and lots of agencies like ours.
I am a FOSS advocate and I am doing my best to integrate OpenMRS for our business model. Since I don’t have any experience at all in OpenMRS I learn as I go, and I encounter some issues along the way. I could present a demo to the management with OpenMRS. From my previous conversation with them, they could budget $1000 dollars per month for OpenMRS if it works. Now, this is only one agency. Since there are dozens if not hundreds of agencies, there is a huge potential for a steady income to hire full-time developers. Hence improving the quality of OpenMRS. If and only if OpenMRS could be tweaked and integrated as a complete solution for a whole industry, home care. Now, in the long run, things like scheduling, timesheets, attendance, ticketing, printing, electronic visit verification etc. might be needed to implement. Why should companies like I work for pay for proprietary solutions if there are alternatives like OpenMRS? This money could be spent for the benefit of the community, for the benefit of everybody in the word. The bottom line is, I know that OpenMRS, like any other open-source project, wouldn’t mind some extra cash to keep things going. It is a perfect opportunity and it will be a shame to lose it to a proprietary software.
What is your opinion, ladies and gentlemen? Who is in? What is the best course of an action in this case?
Denis,
What are your terminology and reporting requirements? The CIEL dictionary provides a great start in the US, but does not include ICD-10-CM (only the WHO version) and does not include CPT (due to AMA restrictions). I’d like to understand what your specific needs are so that we could think about how OpenMRS, CIEL and perhaps IMO (www.e-imo.com) could work together to provide you a workable solution in the US.
Good morning, Andrew. The issue is that there is no standart yet defined by the state. So we are waiting for an API of some sort and EVV rules. Since OoenMRS is flexible software, I believe it could be implemented in our field. Is this is what you were hoping for as an answer?
I am more looking into business operations, optimizing the performance of the team by integrating OpenMRS. Now since I have issues with the installation of the suite, I’m giving a shot to Bahmi. However, I am opened to proposals and suggestions. Thank you
Speaking for Bahmni, this is not the typical use case we’ve targeted, but I expect it could be made to work. And if you’re looking for something competitive with Practice Management software, then I think Bahmni is a better solution than plain OpenMRS, because it also integrates OpenERP.
That said, none of the Bahmni implementation partners target the US, and wouldn’t know the details of HIPAA compliance, etc.
It’s an interesting challenge. You’re right that there’s a potential business model there. But just one (possible) client isn’t enough for a business-minded person.
A key first step is probably to do a gap analysis of what your company needs vs what Bahmni (or vanilla OpenMRS) supports, and also to briefly look into any regulatory requirements like whether HIPAA is required.
If the gap is small, maybe you can interest someone in pursuing this.
If the gap is large, you’d probably need to show the potential to line up multiple clients, to get people interested.