As a part of the RHEA project, an HIE was been developed for maternal health in Rwanda. For more information about this project see this link. During this implementation, a Shared Health Record (SHR) based on OpenMRS (http://openmrs.org/) was designed and developed. It is currently implemented and operational within a single district of Rwanda. As a part of the OpenHIE that grew out of this project, our SHR community was tasked with reviewing and evaluating the question: "what makes a good SHR that will suit the future aims of the OpenHIE initiative?"
The objective was to provide a recommendation of whether we should use (adopt), modify an existing technology (adapt) or build something ourselves.
The evaluation
The process and methodology we used to evaluate options for the Shared Health Record were:
Document use cases and requirements for a Shared Health Record
Initial discussions
SHR - Use Cases and Requirements
Performance test the current OpenMRS SHR used in the RHIE
- Performance evaluation of OpenMRS
- Estimated load figure for a Rwandan national deployment
Create a tool to evaluate Shared Health Record software that is closely linked to the requirements
Shared Health Record Evaluation Tool
Compile a list of software that could be used as a Shared Health Record
Shared Health Record - Tools for review
Evaluate list software options using the evaluation tool
Shared Health Record Evaluation Tool
Write up results of the evaluation and come to consensus on a recommended way forward (ie. Use/modify an existing tool or build from scratch)
- Shared Health Record options and recommendation
The recommendation