GSoC 2020 Work Product: FHIR Integration in OpenEMR

Post date  August 28, 2020
Author  Yash Raj Bothra
Written by Yash Raj Bothra (@none) on Friday, Aug 28, 2020

GSoC is about to finish. It was a very successful journey with OpenEMR and I’m very happy that I selected OpenEMR as my GSoC organization. First I should thank my mentors for providing me the guidance to successfully complete the GSoC project. Additionally, I am very thankful to all members of the OpenEMR community.

Overview

The major goal of the project was to integrate FHIR Standard API’s that will help in exchanging healthcare information electronically. My goal with this project was to complete the existing implementation and implement new resources to help OpenEMR get Meaningful Use Certification. Initially, it was difficult to refactor the existing implementation and process all the data in a uniform way, but big thanks to Dixon Whitmire for helping me get a structured plan which I followed all the way along.

Mentors

  • Brady Miller
  • Dixon Whitmire
  • Jerry Padgett
  • Ken Chapple
  • Rob Hausam

Objectives

  • Uniform processing and Refactoring of FHIR requests [Completed]
  • Support OpenEMR Web App for FHIR Resource [Completed]
  • Introduce UUID to every resource [Completed]
  • Introduce New API Endpoints to Support FHIR Resources [Completed]
  • Improve Automated Test Coverage [In-Progress]

GSoC 2020 Contributions

  1. Encounter Resource
  1. Practitioner Resource - https://github.com/openemr/openemr/pull/3652
  2. Organization Resource - https://github.com/openemr/openemr/pull/3662
  3. PractitionerRole Resource
  4. Immunization Resource - https://github.com/openemr/openemr/pull/3729
  5. AllergyIntolerence Resource - https://github.com/openemr/openemr/pull/3736
  6. Condition Resource - https://github.com/openemr/openemr/pull/3763
  7. Procedure Resource - https://github.com/openemr/openemr/pull/3784
  8. Medication Resource - https://github.com/openemr/openemr/pull/3790
  9. MedicationRequest Resource - https://github.com/openemr/openemr/pull/3821
  10. Location Resource - https://github.com/openemr/openemr/pull/3829
  11. Observation Resource - https://github.com/openemr/openemr/pull/3867
  12. CareTeam Resource - https://github.com/openemr/openemr/pull/3884

Documentation

Pending Work

  • Still there is scope to add more and more FHIR resources.
  • Most of the targeted resources are achieved as planned in the GSoC. Improving the test coverage and adding more operations are the areas that can be further enhanced.

Experience

GSoC 2020 is my first contribution to an open source software project. It was really amazing, and I gained massive experience. I saw firsthand how an open source community builds an open source project and developed an appreciation for open source culture. Over these past few months I have improved myself in programming skills, communication skills and several other skills. I would like to thank my mentor Brady Miller and all the other mentors for their guidance and support. I would like to thank the OpenEMR community for accepting me and helping me. Finally, I would like to thank Google for organizing the GSoC program.