Clinical EHRs

At this TEPR, ClearHealth will announce several impressive initiatives. They made the announcements. There were two big ones. First was what they call “Health Cloud” that allows them to deploy massive data webservices for things like drug databases, ontologies, coding sets, and other publicly available, but constantly changing data. Second was the Web based VistA implementation that they have which is a “compiled” version of VistA that runs over the web and does not require MUMPS. There is already a forum post with David’s talk which is worth reading.
These announcements already follow two big announcements prior to TEPR. ClearHealth has already gotten press for its iPhone support, and it will get more for ClearHealth integration with Google Health. Given these releases, and in the context of by far the largest install base in the United States, it is fair to say that ClearHealth has a substantial lead in the US Market.

The only project that is as important as ClearHealth is OpenMRS. OpenMRS has been swinging for the fences in its target markets, developing countries. OpenMRS now has many deployments in both South America and Africa. They have had a successful community meeting in Cape Town.

Honorable mentions goes to two other projects, Tolven and WorldVistA EHR.

Tolven boasts a robust architecture and an integrated PHR, however they are not yet deployed the code in live environments. If they are successful in their deployments, which are only months away, they could again be competing for a slot in the forefront.

WorldVistA is the only CCHIT-certified EHR available under an open source license, and while there are several installations working towards full-implementation, the white-papers documenting their success have not appeared. If the WorldVistA community shows that the installation of this complex, hospital-oriented EHR is effective in an out-patient environment, then WorldVistA could also be a contender for the top clinical EHR.