My 2013 List of Major 'Open Source' Electronic Health Record (EHR) Systems

I've been following and reporting on 'open source' electronic health record (EHR) and/or electronic medical record (EMR) systems over the past decade. In the late 1990's and early years of the 21^st century, there were several hundred open source EHR/EMR projects that were initiated and posted on sites like SourceForge, GitHub, GForge, Freshmeat, etc.  Over the years many of them fell by the wayside. They never released a working products, failed to gain traction, or a sustainable community never grew up around the solution.

Looking through the major open source forges and software directories again, checking the number of weekly downloads, user community, software development activity, and other key variables, I've compiled a list of some of the best open source EHR/EMR systems that have survived the test of time. The list includes EHR/EMR systems for hospitals, clinics, and small practices. It is roughly in order of popularity and use across the U.S. and around the world.

 We've seen the 'open market' winnow down the list from several hundred solutions back in the 1990's to about 20+ systems today.  I expect the list will get even shorter by the end of this decade.

List of Major 'Open Source' EHR/EMR Systems

• VistA  System  [A thriving community that includes various derivatives of the open source VA VistA system, e.g. vxVistA, OpenVistA, RPMS, CHCS, WorldVistA, etc.]
• OpenEMR
• OpenMRS  
• GNU Health 
• Open Source Clinical Applications & Resources (OSCAR)
• CARE2X System   
• Hospital OS
• GNUmed
• Tolven Health Record
• HOSxP
• OpenEHR 
• OpenClinic
• OpenClinic GA
• Open Hospital
• OpenPatientOS
• FreeMed
• GaiaEHR
• CottageMed™ EHR
• DataPall Palliative Care EMR
• Mountain Meadow Medical Record EHR
• MedScribbler EMR

If I missed a major open source EHR/EMR system that is being widely used, let us know.

OpenEMR Continues to Grow in Popularity & Use

OpenEMR recently posted a news release with data on the number of downloads of their popular open source electronic medical record (EMR) software. The number of practitioners using the system and the patient population they are treating are staggering – a real eye-opener. It's amazing that many noted management consulting & research organizations like Klas still fail to acknowledge or report on the rapidly growing number of high quality, open source health IT solutions now widely deployed.

Aside from OpenEMR, there are a number of other notable open source electronic medical record (EMR) systems installed in thousands of hospitals and clinics around the world, i.e. OSCAR, OpenMRS, and VistA. The number of clinicians using these systems runs into the tens of thousands, and the number of patients being treated using these open source systems numbers many tens of millions of people across the U.S. and around the world.

Read more about this in the article entitld "OpenEMR Continues to grow in Popularity and Use" recently published in Open Health News.