The openEHR Foundation

The openEHR Foundation governs the openEHR assets which can be found at the openEHR.org website. These include the very detailed specifications for a shared electronic health record (EHR) repository suitable for multiple applications to share health records. The content of the EHR is specified using openEHR's archetype definition language (ADL) and are governed in the Clinical Knowledge Manager, an online collaborative repository. There are now a number of open source software projects underway within the openEHR community. These projects use different programming languages to build applications and services that can utilise the openEHR data. A further group works on localisation and translation of the specifications and archetypes for use around the world. What can you do?

Governance

The openEHR Foundation is presently governed by a Board of 5 experts, 4 of whom are clinicians. The Foundation is moving to new governance arrangements outlined in a board document published late in 2011. The day to day work of openEHR is undertaken by Members, who join one of the Program areas:

• The Specifications Program - describing in detail how to implement openEHR and its relationship to other standards and led by Thomas Beale;
• The Software Program - providing tools which work to these specifications led by Erik Sundvall;
• The Clinical Program - overseeing the creation of the archetypes (or clinical models) which enable clinical information to be shared between systems led by Heather Leslie;
• The Localisation Program - overseeing uptake of openEHR in other countries and languages led by Koray Atalag.

Foundation Guidance