openEHR

What is openEHR?

openEHR is an open specification and ecosystem for vendor-neutral, interoperable electronic health records (EHR). It separates the technical reference model (how data is stored and exchanged) from clinical content models (archetypes and templates), enabling consistent, semantically rich clinical data that can evolve without breaking implementations.

Key concepts

Reference Model (RM): the technical building blocks for EHR data structures.
Archetypes: reusable clinical data models (detailed clinical concepts).
Templates: combinations of archetypes tailored to specific forms or workflows.
Compositions / EHR: documents and the persistent patient record built from templates and archetypes.

Role for developers

Implementers: build and integrate EHR systems, APIs and storage using the RM (e.g., CDRs like EHRbase or EtherCIS).
Integrators: map between openEHR and external standards (FHIR, HL7) and other systems.
Modelers / Tooling Authors: create or adapt archetypes and templates and automate validation.
Testers & Maintainers: ensure data integrity, implement versioning, security, and performant queries.

Getting started (brief)

Explore the Clinical Knowledge Manager (CKM) for archetypes and templates.
Try an openEHR CDR (EHRbase, EtherCIS) locally or via Docker.
Use available SDKs and libraries (Java, .NET, Python) and archetype/template editors.
Focus on understanding the RM and common archetypes before implementing persistence or integrations.