Our world continues to be ravaged by pandemics of epic proportions, as over 40 million people are infected with diseases such as HIV/AIDS, multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, and malaria – most (up to 95%) of these afflictions are present in developing countries. Prevention and treatment interventions on this scale require efficient information management, which is critical as clinical care must increasingly be entrusted to less skilled providers. Whether for lack of time, developers, or money, most health care programs in developing countries manage their information with simple spreadsheets or small, poorly designed databases … if anything at all. To help them, they need to find a way not only to improve management tools, but also to reduce unnecessary, duplicate efforts.

As a response to these challenges, the Open Medical Record System (OpenMRS®) was created in 2004 as a open source medical record system platform for developing countries – a tide which rises all ships. OpenMRS is a multi-institution, non-profit collaborative led by Regenstrief Institute, a world-renowned leader in medical informatics research, and Partners In Health, a Boston-based philanthropic organization with a focus on improving the lives of underprivileged people worldwide through health care service and advocacy. These teams nurture a growing worldwide network of individuals and organizations all focused on creating medical record systems and a corresponding implementation network to allow system development self reliance within resource constrained environments.