Re: [Health] Details of EMR/EHR + documentation

[Chris]

> as I've a presentation on Wednesday I'd like to know exactly which format
> the EMR/EHR-records have currently.
> It might be important, at least to know about it and maybe the format
> itself too.
> So if it's a standardized format it would be good to know it.

I think what you are asking is, what format is used for interoperability
requirements? Emil said it well, internally the data is stored in
a postgresql db according to models. On the interoperability issue, we
are now working on instituting the HL7 FHIR standard:
http://www.hl7.org/implement/standards/fhir/. The standard is based on
REST design with HTTP methods. The FHIR standard will be the
interoperable standard used in the future. Your post is rather topical
because discussions on how to go about implementing this standard (and
maybe some others) are going on right now on the health-dev mailing
list. In addition, we are currently scheduling a meeting to discuss
these issues further. As you said, they are very important.

> > The storage in the database may be interesting at some point but in the
> > persons or patients folder I've the option to download the record.
> > This record is in binary format, can be unpacked (by ace if I'm not wrong)
> > and includes several binary files.

Maybe I'm looking in a different spot, but when I choose to export the
data, it is stored in a regular text file in CSV format. I click the
Tools button --> Export data. Then you can choose which fields to
export. CSV format is widely used. Its basically just a comma-separated
list of keys and values... a primitive dump of the database columns.
Easy to parse and import, too (which GNU Health can do).

Thanks.

-C

PS: Medical images/attachments are a bit different, but most images are
in DICOM format, so exporting/importing isn't that arduous.