Shiriki Webinar Series Materials - OpenMRS Concept Dictionary Governance and Management

This panel targeted implementers of health information systems that collect patient-level data and specifically for the implementers, developers, and managers of OpenMRS both internationally and at the country level.

Introduction

Many PEPFAR-funded countries use electronic medical records (EMRs) to manage patient and related data to support HIV/TB program implementation and improvement, case surveillance, and epidemic control. Several countries have adopted OpenMRS [1] as an EMR platform. A fundamental building block of OpenMRS implementation is the use of a concept dictionary (CD) [2] to define concepts used in patient care and map patient and related data to defined concepts. The Columbia International eHealth Laboratory (CIEL) and the Millennium Villages Project developed a de facto standard CD within the OpenMRS community. The process of managing this CD is currently being supplanted by a more dynamic subscription approach via the Open Concept Lab (OCL) for OpenMRS module project. OCL is a cloud-based dictionary management platform that publishes a subset of curated concepts from CIEL (or another source dictionary) which can then be subscribed to by OpenMRS implementations through the OCL client. [3]. Challenges related to the use of CDs in OpenMRS include:

1. Suboptimal turnaround times on concept-related requests made by OpenMRS developers
2. Developers lack the full breadth of domain expertise required to create, or reuse, concepts for local use cases
3. Various in-country implementations of OpenMRS may result in non-harmonized CDs
4. Lack of governance mechanisms and processes to harmonize and maintain CDs [4].

References:

1. OpenMRS Wiki
2. OpenMRS concept dictionary
3. The MVP-CIEL Concept Dictionary
4. EMR concept dictionary convergence discussions from Kenya-TAP meetings (Palladium, CDC Kenya, TAP implementing partners [PATH, UCSF], CDC HQ)

The goal of this Shiriki webinar panel series was to convene a panel of experts to discuss the following broad topics:

• Panel 1: May 4, 8:00-9:30 EDT: Panelists will provide a conceptual overview of the OpenMRS CD, pitfalls and challenges in CD governance and terminology management implementation, and opportunities for collaboration among key stakeholders.
• Panel 2: May 11, 8:00-9:30 EDT: Countries who have implemented OpenMRS to share experiences on the CD governance and Terminology Management (TM) challenges and how these have been addressed and lessons learned.
• Panel 3: May 18, 8:00-9:30 EDT: Countries share insights into how cross-country collaborations will help address CD governance and TM, and identify partnerships, roles, and resources to improve CD governance and TM.

Panels 1 & 2

Presentations

Panel 3: Country Insight on Concept Dictionary Governance and Management (May 18th 2021)

Panel Summary: Panelists shared insights into how cross-country collaborations will help address CD governance and management, and identify partnerships, roles and resources to improve CD management. OpenMRS will be providing a demonstration of how their system works in relation to the CD.

Presentations

Reading Materials