The “Open Source Electronic Health Record Agent “(OSEHRA), a not-for-profit foundation established by the VA will facilitate open source EHR software development. Conrad Clyburn responsible for the development of the open source community announced that the launch of the “Code Repository and Software Quality Certification Process” has officially taken place. The VA is still an active participant in the OSEHRA community.
Seong K. Mun Ph.D Acting President and CEO said, “The repository and software quality certification process will ensure that the Open Source EHR codebase, based on VA’s contribution of VistA software is suitable for modernization and distribution. Certification is ultimately the verification that all executable artifact managed by OSEHRA are safe, compliant, and functional.”
He added, that there are a number of additional tools of value to all community members such as an architecture reference for the existing open source EHR codebase, guidelines for making code contributions, tools for reviewing code, bug tracking tools, and a community Wiki.
Dr. Mun hosted a 45 minute webinar on October 19, 2011 titled “OSEHRA: Open for Business” where he provided a progress report on OSEHRA activities and discussed the strategic direction of the organization while encouraging community participation.
Membership is now open to all and according to Clyburn membership is currently operating with over 350 members with about 60 from industry, 50 or so drawn from the VA VistA software development community, and a dozen academic institutions.
For more information on OSEHRA, go to www.osehra.org or email Conrad Clyburn at clyburnc@osehra.org or call (571) 858-3205.
