Great news, everyone! In February, we learned that OpenMRS Inc has been awarded a $66,000 grant from Digital Square to support patient-level indicator reporting. This is our fourth Digital Square award (two focused on Bahmni and one for the QA Team’s work on improving QA processes and automated test frameworks).
You may recall that last summer, we joined a consortium in response to a request for applications from Digital Square last summer. This consortium submitted a proposal for an integrated, HIE approach to patient-level indicator reporting consisting of multiple scopes of work (or workpackages). OpenMRS’ contribution focused on developing technical solutions for extracting data from OpenMRS for patient-level indicator reporting (initially, TX_PVLS). As one of several workpackages funded, this scope of work will involve collaboration with a number of other global goods, such as OCL and Bahmni.
What’s next?
Before we start in on the technical work itself, there are several pre-award, grant administration and management tasks that we need to do - including reviewing and finalizing the scope of work that will be included in the final contract. Getting this award set up will involve multiple people in our community, and specifically those representing OpenMRS Inc, our Operations Team, and our community’s technical leadership. The Operations Team and Technical Action Committee is already diving into this, with a special shout out to @terry @janflowers @burke @ibacher @dkayiwa and @mseaton.
As part of the pre-award process:
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@terry and I are in the process of setting up a SmartSheet for us to use for planning and managing work for this project. A version of what we currently have has been exported to a Google spreadsheet (warning: it’s still drafty and a bit ugly).
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@terry @janflowers @jennifer @burke @ibacher @maurya have already committed to talking with Digital Square and other awardees about our respective scopes of work, potential dependencies, and possible opportunities for collaboration.
In the coming weeks, we’ll work through some additional questions about how we manage and get the technical work done, such as:
- What do the PCC, the TAC, the PM and QA Teams, and squads do in relation to this project? What are their roles and responsibilities?
- What skills and expertise will we need?
- How can implementers and volunteers contribute?
- How will we reach out to and engage subject matter experts and other groups with the technical expertise we need?
How can you get involved?
We’re just getting started and anyone is welcome to be a part of this project or simply follow along. If you would like to contribute, either during the pre-award phase or during the award period itself, please let us know at any time. As we finalize our scope, we’ll also get a clearer idea of what sort of technical opportunities will come along with this project - and what sorts of skills or expertise we’ll need.
As a starting point, I suggest going through the resources below - along with the RFA and technical proposals - to become more familiar with the scope currently under discussion: