My company is migrating from a proprietary EMR to OpenEMR.
As a first step, we are looking for a hosted deployment, to get familiar with the software before implementing in on premises.

For that purpose, there is quite a handful of choices.

Could you share your experience with hosted open source software? Maybe some advise?


Thanks for reading this

i've only played around with a few of the hosted ones... i forget which ones exactly.
but honestly i got much more mileage from installing it on a fedora live-usb instance running on my laptop and accessing it via my desktop thru wifi (it essentially is just lamp). one issue i had i think dealt with mysql permissions necessary for generating hipaa-837 files.

my wifes practice is really small so we put off installing an emr for a while.

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If you are reviewing the list of OpenEMR providers you may want to begin your search with those that are "certified contributors". Also, having a set of test data and a defined test plan will allow you to work more effectively with the vendors. Do you have an expectation on the cost?

What major factors and priorities were considered when you made the On-Premise rather than Hosted decision?

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Sorry for the delay in posting again. I've been quite invested on the elections
Thanks for replying to my post

I think the hosted decision is a way to avoid unnecessary headaches and will allow me to focus on other critical challenges that require immediate attention.

OTOH, moving to On-Premise is just a possibility for the future, not definite decision. The advantages would be a higher control of the system and the possibility of higher customization; the disadvantage would be the cost of keeping the servers and the system ourselves.

Finally, there is a considerable number of "certified" companies offering this, so I wonder if there are other parameters to narrow down the options and finally arrive to a sensible choice.

Thanks again.

Control is a two-edged sword. While you may want "high control" that usually comes with an associated "high cost". The trick is to determine what you want to control and how much that control is worth? For some, the control is really piece of mind. They like the idea of having the system on-premise because they can literally see and feel the equipment and see processes execute. But the cost of equipment and the associated security, disaster recovery, and performance responsibility can run pretty high. In these situations control feels great when things are going well. Not so much when it doesn't.

In making the hosted provider selection I think you would want to consider multiple factors, and not make the decision solely on the cost. That might include options you have for support and training. There are two areas you want to be familiar with; the solution (OpenEMR) and the environment. The environmental considerations like release and upgrade management, hardware redundancy, performance management, and regression testing all go beyond the workings of the EMR product.

Please give us an update as you go through the process.

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I am taking careful note of the factors you are mentioning here.
I will rather go with a well rounded solution, which includes all the items you mention, despite a slightly higher cost. If they deliver as promised, that will certainly provide some peace of mind for us.
I will post as I go along with this process