Google Season of Docs Project Proposal

Create "Getting Started Guide" for New Users - OpenEMR

The OpenEMR community is submitting an application for the 2023 Google Season of Docs (GSoD).

About OpenEMR

Medical practices worldwide help make OpenEMR one of the most popular open-source electronic health record (EHR) solutions. Our broad feature set includes patient demographics, appointments, prescriptions, billing, free support, and much more. We strive to be a superior alternative to our proprietary counterparts, so we pursue initiatives that keep us competitive. Examples include our ONC Certification, which shows we meet federal health IT requirements, and leadership from active board members. Our software is constantly being refined, as demonstrated by a recently released patch with over 20 improvements. We utilize a variety of technologies, including PHP, MySQL, and HTML/CSS/JavaScript.

OpenEMR was developed by medical providers, for medical providers. We believe healthcare is a fundamental human right so our software is free. In contrast, commercial EHR implementation projects in the US can cost medical institutions more than $100 million (Dyrda, 2020). One foreign user posted in our Forum "...where i [sic] live closed source EMR/EHR can cost something between a [sic] 150 USD up to 5000+ USD with less than half what Openemr [sic] has to offer." By providing free software, clinics who cannot afford commercial EHR costs are still empowered to provide higher quality and safer care (What are the Advantages, 2022).

A vibrant community of volunteers and professionals maintains and supports Open EMR, including several hundred contributors and more than 40 companies. Since its release in 2002, OpenEMR has been used by facilities in more than 100 countries and translated into 34 languages. Over 100,000 medical providers serving more than 200 million patients are believed to use OpenEMR.

We are committed to helping as many clinics as possible and would love to further this mission through Google Season of Docs!

Check us Out!

For more information about OpenEMR, please visit the following links:

• Organization: https://www.open-emr.org
• Source code: https://github.com/openemr/openemr
• Documentation: https://www.open-emr.org/wiki/index.php/OpenEMR_Wiki_Home_Page
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@openemr3787
• Forum (free support): https://community.open-emr.org/

OpenEMR's Google Season of Docs (GSoD) 2023 Project

Problem Statement

Our existing documentation has a wealth of information, but is difficult for new users to navigate. The onboarding experience is unclear, so the documentation mainly functions as a reference. New users try to find information on the wiki, open issues on GitHub and/or the Forum to get help, or give up altogether. For example, numerous posts on the Forum mention how challenging it is to learn from the documentation and ask for advice on how to navigate it as a new user.

Improving the onboarding experience will make it easier for new users to learn, increasing OpenEMR's impact on healthcare around the world!

Scope

The OpenEMR project will:

• Conduct an audience analysis to better understand OpenEMR users and their diverse needs.

• With the needs of each user in mind, audit existing documentation and identify areas for improvement.
  • We will also consider ways to increase accessibility, such as using text, color, and symbols rather than relying on color alone.

• Solicit feedback about existing documentation via a survey.

• Create a "getting started guide" that is useful for new users, easy to follow, and comprehensive.
  • We plan to address the unique needs of each user independently, so users won't become overwhelmed or distracted by irrelevant information.
  • Where possible, we will encourage the user to learn by doing.

• Establish a process for keeping the "getting started guide" up-to-date.

• Analyze survey results and prioritize areas of improvement that have not been addressed yet.
  • We anticipate some areas of improvement will already be addressed from the development of the "getting started guide."
  • We plan to prioritize improvements that benefit both new and current users, have a large impact, and are feasible within the remaining time left in the project.

• Implement as many improvements as possible.

• Create a list of unaddressed improvements that can easily be found by users who want to help with documentation.

• Solicit feedback about the new documentation by re-releasing the original survey.
  • May add some additional questions about the new documentation as well.

Work that is out of scope for this project:

• Social media engagement.
• Resolving new bugs that are discovered while working on documentation.
  • Issues will be documented in GitHub so they can be resolved outside the GSoD timeline.

Measuring Success

Survey Goal

• We will meet our survey goal if we see a 20% increase in the overall satisfaction score for onboarding between the pre- and post- GSoD survey results. If we see a 60% increase, we will smash this goal!

New Documentation Goal

• By the end of the project, we will have a "getting started guide" that addresses the needs of at least 3 different OpenEMR users.

New User Engagement Goal

• We will meet our engagement goal if the number of new contributors increases by 10% during the first 3 months after the project. An increase of 30% would be a huge success!

Timeline

Milestone	Action Items	Dates
1: Determine the baseline	Conduct audience analysis, audit existing documentation, and develop and release documentation survey	April 17th - June 5th
2: Develop "getting started guide"	Create a "getting started guide", establish process to keep "getting started guide" up-to-date	June 6th - July 17th
3: Synthesize improvements	Analyze survey results and prioritize improvements, implement improvements, document unaddressed improvements, re-release original survey	July 18rd - July 30th
4: Analyze Outcomes	Re-release original survey, compare pre- and post-project survey results	July 31st - Aug 7th

Project Budget

Item	Amount ($)	Notes
Technical Writer	8,800	10 hours/week for 16 weeks
Volunteer Stipends	1,000	2 stipends at $500 each
Total	9,800

Unclaimed expenses will be re-invested into new development efforts such as hybrid inpatient/outpatient support.

Additional Information

Previous experience with technical writers or documentation

Currently, multiple community members are working on documentation for OpenEMR. Active efforts include creating a technical manual for a new module and writing an overview of the OpenEMR interface. Members working on these projects have been very supportive of the technical writer so far, including patiently answering numerous questions. In turn, the technical writer edited one of the aforementioned documents and provided feedback for the other. This precedent of working well together and building upon each other's strengths shows OpenEMR can be trusted to lead a successful GSoD program.

Previous participation in Google Season of Docs, Google Summer of Code or others

OpenEMR participated in the Google Summer of Code program in 2020 and had a fantastic experience! We found it incredibly rewarding to mentor students and were impressed by their achievements. Student projects included designing and integrating a hybrid mobile application, modernizing the underlying codebase, and improving OpenEMR's interoperability. Working with these students reinforced our desire to recruit new members and apply to similar programs, such as GSoD. Please see the following link for a celebration of the students' accomplishments: https://www.open-emr.org/blog/openemrs-gsoc-2020-resounding-success/

Reference List

Dyrda, L. (2020, December). 4 EHR contracts, installs costing over $100 million in 2020. Becker's Hospital Review. Retrieved March 16, 2023,

from https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/ehrs/4-ehr-contracts-installs-costing-over-100-million-in-2020.html