Product Dashboard: OpenMRS Product Vision, Strategy, & Roadmap

Subscribe to Updates: To follow new Roadmap additions or changes, subscribe to this page.

Contact: Have an interesting initiative you want to see on the Community Product Roadmap? Contact Director of Product Grace Potma at: grace@openmrs.org

Vision & Top 3 Strategic Directions

We work together in a global fight to improve health care. Tech is one tool we use to bring better care to patients, the providers who care for them, and the organizations who steward health resources. This means the tech we develop together must have Great Tooling + Great Documentation to unlock scale to ensure patients get the right, timely, and appropriate care; provide health workers with timely, accurate, and complete information; and, give organizations data to improve the efficiency and quality of care delivery.

Our top 3 Strategic Directions guide us now and in the future 5 years to achieve our Vision. We call these strategies our "3 C's":
  • Care: Pt Care & User Experience (via O3 - better data quality through better Point-of-Care UX)
  • Config & Deployment: Faster Deployment through tools that get us closer to enabling non-developers to set up and maintain the EMR, e.g. OCL, Initializer, Docker, and more.
  • Communication: Data Exchange

...and of course, Ongoing Platform/Core Maintenance, including library upgrades and security patches. 

Top Priorities in 2023

  • Out of the Box Outpatient EMR completed and being leveraged in the real world. 
  • Release O3 apps often and with confidence. A regular cadence with clear release notes and stable versions #'s will help O3 implementers to rapidly benefit from bug-fixes & new features. Part of achieving this requires extensive test automation baked-in to both our PR and release pipelines. (O3, or "OpenMRS 3", is our next-generation version of OpenMRS.)

 Details About this Product Dashboard

This Product Dashboard is a dynamic, changing space that is open to feedback. The intent is a home-base where anyone, especially day-to-day Implementers interested in the OMRS roadmap, can see at a glace some key initiatives going on around the OpenMRS community: what's happening, who's putting resources in, what needs more support, and where there are specific opportunities to contribute support/investment.

Short Link to this page: om.rs/productdashboard

 How This Page is Updated

We are working on a clearer process for this. For now: project contributors are encouraged to update this page, though responsibility for ensuring this is a fair, up-to-date reflection of current community work rests with the OMRS Director of Product. Reach out to Grace Potma; we’d love to hear from you and better understand your initiative so we can broadcast your amazing work! We also regularly review this page in the OMRS Technical Action and Strategy & Operations Committees, to help everyone be on a similar page about key work moving our community forward closer to our strategic priorities. 

 Table of Contents


Product Roadmap

Product Roadmap

 CRITERIA: How items get on this Community Roadmap

All of these items are:

  • being conducted in a public community process, with involvement & investment from 2+ Organizations
  • being shared with /omrs/5 facilitators, and are receiving some degree of dedicated support from OpenMRS Inc
  • likely to provide wide community value (i.e. fit under the definition of "Shared Assets" for community)  

To suggest an item for the Community Product Roadmap, simply contact Director of Product Grace Potma (grace@openmrs.org) - we'd love to hear about your priorities and current focus areas.


(tick) Done

Recent Work Completed

(plus) Now

What We're Working on Today (Active Design or Development)

(lightbulb) Next

Emerging Community Priorities

CARE: 
Pt Care & User Experience
(via O3 - better data quality through better Point-of-Care UX)

3.x Performance Enhancements

  OMRS INC BROWN

Improvements merged; Migration guide for Implementers here

Status: ROLLING OUT 

Implement Patient Flags

Initial designs here; we would like to get these done. First legos to support decision support. 

  OMRS INC  FELLOWS

Queues & Clinic Dashboards

A 'snapshot' of active visits and patient priority levels. Goal is to improve clinic workflows / service delivery queues, and team communication, starting with Outpatient clinic workflows. 

PALLADIUM BROWN METS

Status: IN PILOT 

Print

Ability to print things from the EMR, e.g. HIV Clinical Summary

 GSOC '22  PIH

ANC SMART Guidelines: Decision Support UI and Engine for O3

FELLOWS AMPATH MEKOM PIH 

Appointment Management MVP

For Facilities: Configure what appointments are provided, and how they can schedule pts. stats, lists. 

PALLADIUM  

Status: IN PILOT 

O3 Design Patterns Project

Expand the design assets & components currently in our Zeplin Styleguide into a more easily accessible, robust set of guidance that can be directly followed by designers and developers working on 3.x-related features.

 AMPATH/SONDER 

Status: IN DESIGN

IFrame the O3 EMR

Ability to show and use the O3 EMR within an iframe / in another system, eg Moodle. Timeline: ~Q2 2023

  FAIMER MEKOM 

O3 Release & Dockerization Improvements

  OMRS-TAP MEKOM 

Status: IN DEV

Drug Orders / e-Prescribing

UCSF-TAP REGENSTRIEF PIH AMPATH 

PILOT

KenyaEMR with O3 Appointments + Queues: ~Nov 9 2022, 2 small sites

PALLADIUM    

 PILOT

ICAP-Ethiopia: OHRI/3.0 Clinical Testing Go-Live, 2 small HIV sites (Q3 2022)

ICAP-ETHIOPIA UCSF-TAP 

Bulk Retrospective Data Entry

  MEKOM ICRC

Status: IN DEV Target: SEPT '22

Group Sessions / Group Visit Management

3.x feature for Group Sessions, starting with Mental Health group sessions. Aka Bulk Data Entry, Line List style, Tabular data entry view. 

MEKOM ICRC

Status: IN DEV Target: SEPT '22

Offline Mode for CHWs/Outreach

Registration, Forms ready for field use offline

AMPATH MEKOM ICRC 

Status: IN DEV Target: SEPT '22

Configurable Lab Results table view

Configurable extension to show labs of interest in a table (timeline) view. (e.g. "Just HIV-Related Labs")

AMPATH MEKOM

Basic HTML Form Entry (HFE) Form Support in 3.x

Workflow to allow users to open HFE forms within a 3.x workflow. 

MEKOM ICRC (+ input from PIH)

3.x Address Hierarchy Component

  ICAP-ETHIOPIA UCSF-TAP

Clinical Views

Ability to add specialized program- or condition-specific views. Ideally, able to update config easily to add more - e.g. represent clinical view w/ JSON structure. 

AMPATH PIH UCSF  

i18n Date Picker: Ethiopian Calendar + more

  ICAP-ETHIOPIA UCSF-TAP 

Field Discovery: UX and Product field research

In-person shadowing and interviewing end-users at large to small sites, including ecosystem of lab/pharm/billing where relevant

Point of Care: AMPATH (6 sites)

Retrospective Data Entry: PALLADIUM (2 sites)

 LIVE! PILOT

Ampath 3.x Pilot (Kenya): 3.0 Go-Live with Clinician Workflows at large HIV Outpatient Clinic (Started Feb 2022)

AMPATH

Theming 3.x!

PIH AMPATH

(Some input from UCSF)

Status: DONE 

PILOT

Ampath 3.x Live Test (Kenya): End to End Testing with Outpatient HIV Clinicians AMPATH(Q 4)

Status: DONE 

Generic Encounter Widget 

Reuseable version of a common widget, powered by config that's easily editable (e.g. if you want to change columns & data shown in a table)

PIH OHRI/UCSF 

Status: DONE

(star) 3.0.0 Demo Launch (star)

Q3 Goal = end to end outpatient workflow launched online for public use & experimentation. Includes:

  • Offline Mode for Mobile/Community Health Workers: view patient charts offline
  • Lab Results with charts & interactive viewing
  • Drug Ordering
  • Patient Lists (create lists and add patients to lists)
  • Full featured outpatient chart (e.g. Medication History, Immunizations, past Visit Notes view, and more)

AMPATH MEKOM PIH BROWN

Status: DONE 

Adopted Carbon Design

Updated 3.x Frontend to use 3rd party design system. Result: Faster design & development outputs. 

AMPATH MEKOM

Share Frontend Widgets with Plug-and-Play Architecture 

Microfrontend framework completed; enables implementers to re-use others' frontend features. 

AMPATH MEKOM

3.x Guide for Developers

Step by step guide to the new Design System & Microfrontend architecture. Will help Devs implement 3.x for their org, or contribute to Squad.

PIH 

NCD Use Cases & Design Research

User Research, Designs, & Testing to validate and prepare EMR for NCD care context. E.g. NCD-specific widgets and sections of Patient Chart, NCD Peer Support.

AMPATH  (input from PIH)

Status: IN DESIGN 

Registration App Re-Do

Reg page is one of first apps new users/devs look at, and wasn't meeting requirements or code expectations. This refactor makes it easier for implementers to adjust the Registration feature to add/change things as needed. eg handle site- or org-specific field requirements, accept mini-apps like address hierarchy

Orgs: BROWN  

O3 RDE

   Retrospective Data Entry to enable management and editing of past visits & encounters, chart corrections, etc. 

PIH

Status: IN DESIGN 

O3 Form Recommendations

Show & recommend specific forms based on information about Patient or Program Enrolment (eg show ANC forms for ANC visits); likely specified via Form Schema & executed via Form Engine

PALLADIUM

O3 Labs v2: Order, Status, Entry, Results

Interested: UW DIGI UCSF-TAP PIH

Status: DESIGN DONE

React Form Engine feature parity with existing O3 Engine

Roadmap here

  UCSF-TAP OMRS INC

Status: IN DEV 

Medication Dispensing

2.x & 3.x UI to enable Pharmacists to mark drugs and fully or partially dispensed. 

Pilot plan in Sierra Leone for Oct 2023

 PIH  UCSF-TAP

Status: IN DEV 

Content Templates & Toolkits: Packaging and Ingestion Method

     TO DO

Angular Engine maintenance

Roadmap here

   OMRS INC PALLADIUM ICRC

O3 Docs Harmonization

Bring into 1 place all config & devops & dev & setup docs

Interested: OMRS INC  MSF

Implement Tasks (to be driven by CDS)

Initial designs here; we would like to get these done. First legos to support decision support. 

  OMRS INC  FELLOWS

IPD Requirements Gathering

Collecting requirements for inpatient care, e.g. Bed Mgmt, MAR. PIH  MEKOM

In-form Appointment Date Checker

Endpoint convention in OMRS to connect (e.g. "on this day, how many appointments already booked?")

OPEN

Interactive Forms: Embedding Orders, Conditions...

e.g. Starting an Order within a Form Workflow. Forms/notes become the centring piece for teams - we need to figure out how to represent not just data collection, but also embed widgets into the process (so that user doesn't have to click around the EMR to find the information they need while also trying to do a form). 

MEKOM UCSF-TAP 

Interested: ICRC

NOT STARTED

Embedding Allergies/Conditions etc in Form Workflows

Status: IN DESIGN 

Lead: OHRI/UCSF  OPEN 

Use case & design input from: TBC (new)

Rules Engine

(e.g. for Workflow State management; Clinical Decision Support)

Interested: Ampath, ICRC, Mekom

OPEN  NOT STARTED 

Autosave a Form Draft

Interested: _______ NOT STARTED

Patient Lists: Automated (Cohort Builder)

(1) Query for patients who meet a certain criteria, and (2) automated adding/removing of patients from this list (so it's automatically maintained). 

E.g. "show me all Patients who missed med pick up..."

E.g. "show me all Patients who missed their appointment..." 

+ Actions on that list (e.g. change patient status)

 OPEN MEKOM ICRC NOT STARTED

(Interested: Ampath, UCSF)

Referrals

3.x UI to send and receive referrals.

Status: IN DESIGN

Bed Management

MEKOM ICRC NOT STARTED

Team Communication

e.g. Notifications between team members (within UX of System wide / Global notifications; for 1 user but not about 1 patient)

MEKOM ICRC NOT STARTED

OpenMRS Reporting UI

Create a UI that would be able to run an existing report with parameters (if applicable), select the output format and download it

J&J GPH SOLDEVELO  


Pt Lookup on Registration Page

handle National ID or Insurance system integration...

Status: NOT STARTED

"Prevent Pt Duplicates" app in Registration Page

Include merging pts? 

Status: NOT STARTED

Merging the O3 Monorepos for better DevX

 OPEN 

Legend

(tick) Done

Recent Work Completed

(plus) Now

What We're Working on Today (Active Design or Development)

(lightbulb) Next

Emerging Community Priorities

CONFIGURATION (& Deployment):

Faster Deployment

Reactify & Carbonize O3 Form Builder

GUI tool now available in the O3 RefApp admin tools!

OMRS INC GSOC UCSF-TAP 


PILOT

Using OCL/Dictionary Manager to manage all UgandaEMR concepts

METS REGENSTRIEF 

Iniz support for OCL & Dictionary Manager work

 FELLOWS MEKOM PIH

Copy & Customize a CIEL Concept

Able to re-use a CIEL (or other curated) concept instead of re-creating it manually: copy it and make the non-breaking changes you needed (e.g. change answers, add translations, etc). 

 FELLOWS BROWN

OCL Module: Multi-language support

Updating translations for concept updates or new subscriptions that have many languages.

 FELLOWS BROWN 

Input from: UCSF, MSF

Dictionary Manager webapp (aka OCL for OpenMRS)

MVP live for production use. See: Intro video; and demo video

FELLOWS OCL MSF PIH REGENSTRIEF BROWN

3.x OpenMRS Forms: Form Management for Non-Tech folks

A new Form Builder & Form Engine for OpenMRS, using open source code used by OpenMRS implementer for 5+ years. Allow non-coders to set up clinical forms. 

MEKOM AMPATH PALLADIUM


Lighter Deployment

Simpler deployment packaging (3.x RefApp will use a much lighter-weight set of modules)

MEKOM BROWN

OCL Module Improvements

  • Bug fixes related to error messages

INTELLISOFT FELLOWS BROWN

Designs for Implementer Tool: EMR Setup UI for Non-Tech folks

Designs to enable: Non-tech users can set up a 3.x EMR in a friendly, no-code UI, similar to designing a website.

AMPATH PIH

UI Feature Improvements to Form Builder GUI

Ongoing fixes and improvements to the new O3 Form Builder GUI. Epic here. 

 OMRS INC

OCL Module: Automated tests for different data types

 FELLOWS BROWN IN DEV


PILOT

Using OCL/Dictionary Manager to manage all PIH concepts

PIH REGENSTRIEF 

Status: FINAL UAT 

Separate Content Versioning

Separate RefApp software releases from Content releases → means demo data will need to be bundled separately, available like an Add On, and versioned

 Interested: Mekom, Brown OPEN

EMR Packages: Tech Definition & Schema

A way to add content (forms, concepts, custom widgets etc) to easily add new program areas to your EMR (e.g. Maternity Package)

Input from:   REGENSTRIEF MEKOM  PIH BROWN OHRI/UCSF ICRC AMPATH  

OCL OpenMRS Import feature

An answer to "How do I get my legacy metadata into OCL?"

REGENSTRIEF FELLOWSPIH (testing) 

Status: IN DEV 

OCL Module: Diff Check workflow

"Here's what will change" UX/UI when subscribing. 

OPEN

PILOT

3.x Form Builder: UgandaEMR pilot

Easier way of generating forms, via UI. Provide label names + connect pre-defined concepts –> generates JSON file. Finding way to deploy JSON file (Hx of using XML).

METS

Iniz support for Reports

 Interested: PIH OPEN




Use mappings in a form instead of the concept UUIDs

Goal: Demo a form that’s defined and rendered through mappings (not UUIDs). Eg if a country maps to OHRI concepts → Need ability to map

  UCSF-TAP

Legend

(tick) Done

Recent Work Completed

(plus) Now

What We're Working on Today (Active Design or Development)

(lightbulb) Next

Emerging Community Priorities

COMMUNICATION: Data Exchange

Shared Basic Lab Dictionary with OpenELIS

Collaborated with OpenELIS to establish a shared Basic Lab dictionary collection in OCL, with CIEL codes mapped to LOINC. Public here.

OPENMRS INC ITECH / OELIS  CIEL

Advocacy with other Global Goods to adopt OCL to decrease Implementer dictionary maintenance headaches

Significant progress in 2023: large presentations and 1:1 demos at: OpenHIE in Malawi (May), GGIS Summit in Tanzania (June). Result: 2 Global Goods newly working to adopt OCL; 2 others actively considering.

OPENMRS INC REGENSTRIEF 

FHIR 101 Documentation Improvement

Clarify OMRS' strategy and tooling for FHIR, how to find supported resources, and what to do to add more. Public here.

OPENMRS INC BROWN 

FHIR Gaps Review

Using 3.x RefApp, check for areas where REST API is being used where FHIR either could be used or needs support (Done, Doc Here)

UW ITECH BROWN 

FHIR Module Upgrade 

Added support for Immunizations.
Note: The FHIR Module already enables the export of OpenMRS data into FHIR format, to help integrate with other systems use FHIR. 

BROWN UW ITECH MEKOM ICRC

DHIS2 Connector Module

Posts aggregate data from OpenMRS to DHIS2, and gives implementers a User Interface for an easier-to-set-up OMRS to DHIS2 pipeline, that doesn’t need manual code fixes every time there’s a change to reporting indicators. Fixed so this can work in production systems, added automatic data sending, and added support for custom period types.

GSOC MOSS

PILOT

Scale-ready ETL Pipeline to FHIR-based tools: Ampath pilot of Analytics Engine.

GOOGLE AMPATH

Integration Catalog

On OMRS website, help answer the question “Does OpenMRS integrate with…” and give implementers practical resources to follow if they need somewhere to get started. Draft here

OPENMRS INC  


Mapping OpenMRS Order statuses to FHIR

Send a case report from OMRS system to a central repo. 

UCSF REGENSTRIEF BROWN

Send data to Central Repository for Case Based Surveillance

Send a case report from OMRS system to a central repo. 

UCSF (Jembi for mediators)

Lab Viral Load Data Exchange

Based off of FHIR IG. Proof of concept completed. More to be done for full data exchange of lab request and case report.

UCSF (Jembi for mediators)

FHIR Implementation Guide (IG) - Supporting OHIE Facility Registry IG

Goal: Finish & genericize the ITECH FHIR IGs built for Labs, Lab Workflows, and Facility Registries

BROWN UW ITECH IN DEV

Identity & Facility Management

Get iSantePlus Client Registry & Facility Registry workflows set up with FHIR in iSantePlus working in OMRS-core (using FHIR-based workflows)

 UW ITECH BROWN IN DEV

Lab Exchange

Get iSantePlus lab exchange module to work in OMRS-core (connects to id & facility mgmt to i.d. right pt and right facility) (using FHIR-based workflows)

 UW ITECH BROWN IN DEV

DB Sync

MEKOM ICRC IN DEV

Medic Mobile / CHT Reference Integration

A sample integration, both flow and tech, that implementers can easily re-use. Working ad-hoc with CHT Lead Architect on this. 

OPENMRS INC CHT 

FHIR API Support for Terminology Services

Currently dependent on REST API for all things concept or terminology related

Needed for 3.x dynamic patient list queries to be entirely FHIR based.

3.x test results depend on hybrid of FHIR & REST due to this.

 OPEN (Interested: Brown, UW ITECH)

Support for OpenMRS Attributes

Support things we don't currently support in OMRS data model - e.g. pt phone numbers (current support is fragile)

 OPEN (Interested: Brown, UW ITECH)

Odoo integration for Physical Rehabilitation

e.g. Creation of prosthesis and financial / patient billing

MEKOM ICRC 

Odoo for Pharmacy

MEKOM 

Odoo integration for Billing

MEKOM ICRC 

Odoo integration for Bed Management

MEKOM ICRC 

Legend

(tick) Done

Recent Work Completed

(plus) Now

What We're Working on Today (Active Design or Development)

(lightbulb) Next

Emerging Community Priorities

Maintenance & Core Support

 (Make it possible for implementers to build their features)

Platform 2.6 Release

Fixes related to Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF). 

Medication Dispense data model update (needed by new dispensing esm).

OMRS INC BROWN REGENSTRIEF 

 

API to get obs for Concept Trees

E.g. for Lab Filters/hierarchies. Method to get set of obs based on a concept tree. 

Actively being used in the new Lab Trees feature!

 AMPATH MEKOM BROWN 

3.X NEED

Data Model to support Service Delivery Queues

Support for dynamic vs static lists of patients.

BROWN AMPATH 

3.X NEED

Platform 2.5 Release

  • Support for Tomcat 7-9.
  • Make Orders, Allergies, Diagnoses, and PatientState form recordable and encounter-able. 
  • Administration via REST. 
  • User settings: store larger strings in DB.
  • Groundwork for future ReferralOrders support.

  REGENSTRIEF PALLADIUM VOLUNTEERS 

REST API Test Coverage

UW ITECH FELLOWS VOLUNTEERS

Thorough Test Coverage: Live OpenMRS QA Dashboard

Automated Workflow Tests applied throughout products

UW ITECH FELLOWS VOLUNTEERS

RefApp 2.12 Release

38 of 42 modules updated. Includes the SPA module that unlocks Microfrontend capability.

VOLUNTEERS 


Dockerizing development and deployment of OpenMRS

Best practices for OMRS development and deployment. Key to enabling Packages vision and CI. 

OMRS INC REGENSTRIEF IN DEV

3.X NEED

Support Referral Orders

 REGENSTRIEF  VOLUNTEERS

3.X NEED

Improve Demo Data Module performance implications

Currently the DD Module causes slow startup times because of how patients are being created & data loaded. Idea: Generate the data once in it's own docker container instead of generating every time we start an instance. 

  BROWN

NOT STARTED 

Event Bus

Event bus so that when things happen, they trigger a new process(es) to start. (e.g. patient finishes visit, needs to be moved from one Service Delivery Queue to another) - see OHRI example outlined here re Patient State vs Workflow State 

 Interested: Ampath, UCSF?

3.X NEED

Access Control List support

MEKOM REGENSTRIEF  VOLUNTEERS 3.X NEED

Audit Log for Views & Updates

We have no auditing around views. Updates: if a form is filled out multiple times, we'd only have information on the first time and the most recent update. Large project. (eg auditlog work stagnant) There are workarounds, eg Statistics Module, or by configuring the server to log URLs requests (Tomcat or the entry proxy)

Status: NOT STARTED

Orgs: SEEKING

Order Templates

Order Template Modelling E.g. Common Rx's 

 REGENSTRIEF OHRI/UCSF

Interested: Ampath

3.X NEED

Order Sets

Support for Sets of anything that's order-able (e.g. COVID assessment set can contain Meds, Labs, Referrals...)

 REGENSTRIEF AMPATH

3.X NEED

Additional Security Automated Test Coverage

UW ITECH FELLOWS VOLUNTEERSOPEN

Horizontal Scaling Bottlenecks

SEEKING OPEN

Java Changes

Major breaking changes happening in Java community. 

NOT STARTED 

 * Notes

Timeline estimates (e.g. Q1/Q2/H1/H2 etc) are subject to dynamically changing resources in our opensource community. They refer to 2021, and the calendar year timeline, with Q1 ending when April begins.