Health Level Seven or HL7 is a range of global standards for the transfer of clinical and administrative health data between applications. The HL7 standards focus on the application layer, which is "layer 7" in the Open Systems Interconnection model. The standards are produced by Health Level Seven International, an international standards organization, and are adopted by other standards issuing bodies such as American National Standards Institute and International Organization for Standardization. There are a range of primary standards that are commonly used across the industry, as well as secondary standards which are less frequently adopted.
An electronic health record (EHR) is the systematized collection of patient and population electronically stored health information in a digital format. These records can be shared across different health care settings. Records are shared through network-connected, enterprise-wide information systems or other information networks and exchanges. EHRs may include a range of data, including demographics, medical history, medication and allergies, immunization status, laboratory test results, radiology images, vital signs, personal statistics like age and weight, and billing information.
Medical practice management software (PMS) is a category of healthcare software that deals with the day-to-day operations of a medical practice including veterinarians. Such software frequently allows users to capture patient demographics, schedule appointments, maintain lists of insurance payors, perform billing tasks, and generate reports.
LAMP is an acronym denoting one of the most common software stacks for many of the web's most popular applications. However, LAMP now refers to a generic software stack model and its components are largely interchangeable.
OSCAR McMaster is a web-based electronic medical record (EMR) system initially developed for academic primary care clinics. It has grown into a comprehensive EMR and billing system used by many doctor's offices and private medical clinics in Canada and other parts of the world. The name is derived from where it was created and an acronym; OSCAR stands for Open Source Clinical Application and Resource and McMaster refers to McMaster University, where it was developed. It enables the delivery of evidence resources at the point of care.
GNUmed is a Free/Libre electronic medical record (EMR) for Unix-like systems, Microsoft Windows, macOS and other platforms. GNUmed aims to provide medical software that respects the privacy of patients and that is based on open standards.
HOSxP is a hospital information system, including Electronic health record (EHR), used in hospitals across Thailand. It serves over 300 hospitals in Thailand. The software aims to ease the healthcare workflow of health centers, for small sanatoriums to central hospitals.
OpenMRS is a collaborative open-source project to develop software to support the delivery of health care in developing countries.
Health information technology (HIT) is health technology, particularly information technology, applied to health and health care. It supports health information management across computerized systems and the secure exchange of health information between consumers, providers, payers, and quality monitors. Based on a 2008 report on a small series of studies conducted at four sites that provide ambulatory care – three U.S. medical centers and one in the Netherlands, the use of electronic health records (EHRs) was viewed as the most promising tool for improving the overall quality, safety and efficiency of the health delivery system.
The Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VISTA) is the system of record for the clinical, administrative and financial operations of the Veterans Health Administration VISTA consists of over 180 clinical, financial, and administrative applications integrated within a single shared lifelong database (figure 1).
Tryton is a three-tier high-level general purpose computer application platform on top of which is built an enterprise resource planning (ERP) business solution through a set of Tryton modules. The three-tier architecture consists of the Tryton client, the Tryton server and the database management system.
NextGen Healthcare, Inc. is an American software and services company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The company develops and sells electronic health record (EHR) software and practice management systems to the healthcare industry. NextGen Healthcare also provides population health, financial management, and clinical solutions for medical and dental practices. On September 7, 2018, Quality Systems, Inc. changed its name to NextGen Healthcare, Inc. and on September 10, their stock ticker symbol changed to NASDAQ: NXGN.
The community health center (CHC) in the United States is the dominant model for providing integrated primary care and public health services for the low-income and uninsured, and represents one use of federal grant funding as part of the country's health care safety net. The health care safety net can be defined as a group of health centers, hospitals, and providers willing to provide services to the nation's uninsured and underserved population, thus ensuring that comprehensive care is available to all, regardless of income or insurance status. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 29 million people in the country were uninsured in 2015. Many more Americans lack adequate coverage or access to health care. These groups are sometimes called "underinsured". CHCs represent one method of accessing or receiving health and medical care for both underinsured and uninsured communities.
GNU Health is a free/libre health and hospital information system with strong focus on public health and social medicine. Its functionality includes management of electronic health records and laboratory information management system.
The Accra Declaration confirmed the support of the two main healthcare interoperability standards by the open source community. With the support of major open source advocates, this allowed free and unfettered access to the core healthcare interoperability standards which resulted in a substantial increase in their usage. The International Healthcare Modelling Standards Development Organisation (IHMSDO) had earlier placed the intellectual property (IP) of the HL7 and DICOM standards and the IHE profiles into the public domain under the creative commons licence.
FoundationDB is a free and open-source multi-model distributed NoSQL database developed by Apple Inc. with a shared-nothing architecture. The product was designed around a "core" database, with additional features supplied in "layers." The core database exposes an ordered key–value store with transactions. The transactions are able to read or write multiple keys stored on any machine in the cluster while fully supporting ACID properties. Transactions are used to implement a variety of data models via layers.
Health Level Seven International (HL7) is a non-profit ANSI-accredited standards development organization that develops standards that provide for global health data interoperability.
Federal and state governments, insurance companies and other large medical institutions are heavily promoting the adoption of electronic health records. The US Congress included a formula of both incentives and penalties for EMR/EHR adoption versus continued use of paper records as part of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, enacted as part of the, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
Microsoft, a technology company historically known for its opposition to the open source software paradigm, turned to embrace the approach in the 2010s. From the 1970s through 2000s under CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Microsoft viewed the community creation and sharing of communal code, later to be known as free and open source software, as a threat to its business, and both executives spoke negatively against it. In the 2010s, as the industry turned towards cloud, embedded, and mobile computing—technologies powered by open source advances—CEO Satya Nadella led Microsoft towards open source adoption although Microsoft's traditional Windows business continued to grow throughout this period generating revenues of 26.8 billion in the third quarter of 2018, while Microsoft's Azure cloud revenues nearly doubled.
