OpenEMR v2.8.1 vs proprietary clinic management software?

Now that I have successfully installed OpenEMR on its own server, I just need somebody from the other part of the world to try it out. It's just to make sure that it can do the job properly, before I really share the site with fellow GPs in Malaysia.

I am looking for an adventurous Malaysian doctors, who have their own practice, know how to operate a browser based application to try out the demo site that I have set up. As I installed the application in my own web server, please don't do anything heroic. Just login, add some new patient and test around the application. I just need a feedback from you after trying.

Here is the demo site: http://www.hearing-guide.com/openemr/interface/login/login_frame.php

Username: demo
Password: demo

The user manual: http://www.oemr.org/modules/cjaycontent/index.php?id=2

You may ask me why not I just buy a proprietary clinic management software that are available, especially in Malaysia, where they have a good number of vendors/provider? There are few reasons;

1. They a waaaaaay expensive! I received a quotation from one of the vendors of the software, for a clinic with 4 users, the software, installation, training and after-sales services are RM12,000!
   
2. And, the software can only be installed in a computer with Windows XP.
3. Cannot be used in a network. Means, there will be no synchronizing data between my counter staff nurse outside and my laptop inside my room.
4. Oh, when I did try their trial software, its buggy. It means that the software package gives you an error message while installing into my Windows XP. I don't even bother to continue to install it. (I ditch it out from my hard drive STAT!)

You might want to know why I choose a browser based application for the clinic software? These are some of them:

1. First and foremost, the application is free. It's an open source software, means that if you know how to write computer programming language (in this case PHP), you can edit it, do anything you like to the software package and even sell it to others.
2. You can run the software in any platform - Windows, Linux or Mac. You just need a standard web browser to run it smoothly. I choose and recommend Firefox. It's really fast and good.
3. Because the software is installed in a remote and dedicated server, the application can be run at the same time from a different computer and a different user. So, if you have 2 doctors, 2 staff nurses and an administrator in a clinic, you don't have to install it in every computer in the clinic. Just installed it in the server and its done.

However, there are some downside of it:

1. It's a browser based application. So you need to connect to the internet to run the application if you installed it in a remote server. But, this can be overcome if you installed it in a local server, like what I did with XAMPP in Windows XP. The application can be run without internet connection.
2. The stable release of OpenEMR software package has dated back in Feb 2006, with the version 2.8.1. Since then, there are a lot of changes made by the developer, but they did not have an official release. The subversion release (v2.8.2) needs a good knowledgeable administrator to update the application. So, there are still bugs that comes with v2.8.1.
3. You need somebody who know how to manage a server, or at least know how to run and install the application in the remote or the local server. You need a server which runs Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP4 to do the job properly.
   
4. The application was written by a group of international programmer, which means there are some differences of variables for the patient's data collection, such as a 'social security number' vs 'mykad'. The changes of the variables can be done, provided you know how to read, write and edit PHP code. Otherwise, you can still use it, but the clinic have to know which variables that they 'borrow'.
5. The database still use ICD-9 for the disease coding.

Despite the pro's and contra of having OpenEMR as your patient management / clinic management software / application, I have decided to move on using it as the standard software which manages my clinic. Yes, there are a lot of new non-medical, computer and some technology knowledge that I have to learn, but I don't mind doing it. I love to learn something new and something different from the mainstream medicine.

If you are like me, and like to join the boat, you can just contact me. I can try to help you set up your own browser based clinic management software.

OpenEMR on Exabytes.com.my complete

At last, I found the solution for the problem that I faced couple days back. After did some Googling about this "Smarty" problem, it seems that it was not "Smarty" problem at all. It's the problem with file attributes.

It seems that the webserver user does not have a permission to write to the /compiled/default^views^day^default.html. directory, or unable to create the /compiled/ directory. (Maybe that is why it wrote there 'Smarty error: problem writing')

So, what I did was chmod all this directory to 777. (modules/PostCalendar/pntemplates/compiled/)

Oh, by the way, do not forget to chmod the 'Documents' directory to read-write (666) also. Otherwise, you will not be able to upload "Patient's ID" file from your computer to the server.

So, up to now, the experiment is complete. I will give another couple of weeks to get use to this server thing, before I get someone to do some demo run of the website.

How I installed OpenEMR in a webhosting server

3 months after successful installation of OpenEMR in XAMPP and WindowsXP, I decided to install the package in a web hosting server. As this will also be an experiment, I decided to install it on one of my existing website, Hearing Guide.com. Although it's an informative website, it is also a kind of "sandbox website", where I did some experiment on installing php base program on it. One of it is this one.

Well, it is not as easy as extracting the installation package in the public_html of the web server. Few things I have to do before the things gets running. First, my web hosting services, Exabytes.com.my runs PHP5 for the web server. As you know, OpenEMR will not run on a machine with PHP5 on board. I need to switch it to PHP4 to make sure OpenEMR run smoothly.

However, when I contact my web hosting company to request for the switch, it seems that the website is currently hosted on a new server, which only have PHP5 on board. So, I have to write them an email for the request to migrate back to my website to the old server, which have PHP4. The process went smoothly, as I requested that the migration process to be done at midnight. On the next morning, when I log in to the internet and my cPanel, I notice that the migration is successful. An email from the Exabytes technical department also confirm this.

This morning, I reinstall OpenEMR in the old server, (which runs PHP4) hoping that it will run smoothly. I extracted the package, and navigate the folder so that the Hearing Guide.com website is not interrupted. So, the URL looks like this: http://www.hearing-guide.com/openemr.

After the installation, I get the login page. I was delighted. However, when I enter to the first page, the calendar did not show up! No problem with the navigation bar and the lower frame of the page but only at the center, where a calendar should be.

The error message showed this:

Warning: Smarty error: problem writing 'modules/PostCalendar/pntemplates/compiled/default^views^day^default.html.' in /home/hearingg/public_html/openemr/interface/main/calendar/
modules/PostCalendar/pnincludes/Smarty/Smarty.class.php on line 589

I did post the problems in the official OpenEMR forum today, hopefully dr Bowen could help me out...

I will post my progress back in this blog.