Detailed Technical Roadmap
- Michael Downey
- Grace Potma
- Stephen Senkomago Musoke
What is the OpenMRS Technical Roadmap?
The Technical OpenMRS Roadmap is a set of milestones for our Platform, Reference Application, community-sponsored modules, and related tasks that help us meet the needs of our implementations.For information about how the roadmap milestones are chosen and prioritized, see the Technical Roadmap Planning page.
For details of recent releases and release notes, see Releases.
Table of Contents
Product Roadmap
Milestones
Platform & Backend Improvement Ideas for 2024
- Audit Log for Views & Updates: We have no auditing around views. Updates: if a form is filled out multiple times, we'd only have information on the first time and the most recent update. Large project. (eg auditlog work stagnant) There are workarounds, eg Statistics Module, or by configuring the server to log URLs requests (Tomcat or the entry proxy). Wyclif Luyima recommends that we use https://hibernate.org/orm/envers/ instead of https://github.com/openmrs/openmrs-module-auditlog
- Investigate Batching Suggestion from Implementers: Optimize backend requests via batching?
- (Grace & Daniel follow-up on Palladium's issue here) - eg Explore Support for GraphQL https://graphql.org/ to organize request batching
- Where do we need to batch? Would batching actually solve the issue?
- Optimize slow REST API calls performance
- Age Range support
- Med List
- Patient Consent support
Platform 2.7 (Q1 2024 - before mid 2024)
Have feedback about this list? We want to hear from you! Please share in the forum thread here: https://talk.openmrs.org/t/openmrs-platform-roadmap/38652
Our main goal: Make Platform as easy to support as possible.
- DONE on core, IN PROGRESS with modules (but not a Platform 2.7 release blocker - modules run in 2.7, but don't compile) - Support for Java 17 - many newcomers come with Java 17 installed, run into errors, we discover the issue is Java 17. RefApp currently runs well on Java 11, but not 17. (LTS after 11 is 17.) People should be able to develop in the latest LTS of Java, but we want to be able to run on a previous LTS, e.g. still support running on Java 8 (thinking of Implementers). (As we try out 17, will depend on what we figure out; if can't support Java 8, might decide to either cancel 17 update, or drop 8, etc. - we try not to just drop support for a previous version due to the difficulty this causes for implementers.) TRUNK-6197. As part of this work, the reference application modules need to be updated to also support Java 17, but without dropping support for Java 8.
- DONE: Upgrade to Liquibase 4.28.0 - for patches included. Need to check if this upgrade would cause any complexity for us. TRUNK-6155, TRUNK-6208
- Upgrade other small libraries to their latest versions. Dependabot seems to be doing a good job for us here.
- DONE: A REST endpoint to check status of platform (especially when platform is starting up) TRUNK-6198. Would be great to have sense of progress for long-running states.
- DONE for core, TODO for Modules: Remove all uses of the Hibernate Criteria API because it’s deprecated (replaced with JPA criteria) TRUNK-6202
- DONE:Global properties access should be privileged, so we need an endpoint to expose those items needed (anonymously) during O3 startup. TRUNK-6203, TRUNK-6206
- DONE: Add support for init parameters for module servlets (TRUNK-4673) and this Talk post
- DONE: Docker as a first-class approach to deployment. RA-1990, TRUNK-6186, TRUNK-6083
- DONE: Auto deactivation of user accounts after a given number of days without logging in. TRUNK-6235
- ON HOLD - Implement Encounter Context and Visit Context. Much of encounter context work may apply to frontend; there may be some requirements for business on the backend (e.g., deciding when to use existing vs. create new encounter).
- (Pending FE guidance): an approach that lets applications discover/add to "open encounters" for a patient rather than collecting notes, orders, observations, etc. and then trying to infer which or how to group them properly into clinical encounters. This is a need for OPD and adding enough Java dev support to that effort to propose (e.g., to community & TAC) how to better organize data into clinical encounters.. A /dev/4 or /dev/5 with Java (backend) experience & familiarity w/ the model. Probably needs input from clinical SMEs too.
- E.g. if I directly add an allergy or add a new condition, which encounter is it supposed to be logged in?
- E.g. I need to enter lab results that came in after the patient left the clinic - or results from weeks ago that the patient has just handed me, while they also have an active visit.
- (Pending FE guidance): an approach that lets applications discover/add to "open encounters" for a patient rather than collecting notes, orders, observations, etc. and then trying to infer which or how to group them properly into clinical encounters. This is a need for OPD and adding enough Java dev support to that effort to propose (e.g., to community & TAC) how to better organize data into clinical encounters.. A /dev/4 or /dev/5 with Java (backend) experience & familiarity w/ the model. Probably needs input from clinical SMEs too.
- ON HOLD - Extract Immunization like we did for Allergies, Conditions, Diagnosis (Was not done). Need to be able to attribute these (including Allergies, Conditions, Diagnoses) to an encounter. (On hold - lack of consensus)
Platform 2.6 (Q1 2023)
Platform 2.5 (Q4 2021)
- Support for Tomcat 8.5+
- Support for
FormRecordablefor more than justObsandCondition - Administration via REST
Tickets for Platform 2.5
Additional candidates for 2.5:
- Patient Lists (Cohort Module changes)
- User settings Error rendering macro 'jira' : Unable to locate Jira server for this macro. It may be due to Application Link configuration.
- Moving OrderTest toward ServiceOrder to support Referrals
2021 Goal Brainstorming
Actual Tech Priorities (Ideas):
- Platform QA: Some regressions - need more automation to catch in advance, esp. build into PR pipeline
- Automation +++: Get platform to point where enough is automated so have confidence in quality and release more frequently
- Simplifying Deployment
- Support for timezones across the Platform (and beyond, see also about HFE here.)
- FHIR
- Support for FHIR Group through maybe a new Core
Groupentity replacingCohort(see Slack discussion here.)
- Support for FHIR Group through maybe a new Core
- Metadata Sharing: a solution that meets majority of needs (if Iniz, maybe expand and handle a few additional use cases; come up with something that's better than our old tech for metadata sharing)
- Integration: Clarify actionable things we can do to better integrate into other Digital Health tools that are typically found around an EMR like OpenMRS.
- i18n: Fully internationalizing metadata concepts (but is this really a priority, pain point?)
- Support for i18n of metadata in Core (see for example this thread.)
- Download & Run: Easier to use without getting bogged down in details - something non-tech end user can work with. Standalone hasn't advanced in a while - needs love for feature updates or different approach or make useable again (e.g. some Mac versions no longer running). People using Standalone in production b/c simple to manage, came up with backups automation approach. → So easy to download, click and it runs. Using tech that's already available on users' computers.
- Sync: Most implementations not connected to single server; most combine, do analysis later. Is this a priority for implementers now?
- Patient Lists: FHIR-based patient lists proposal from Ampath
- Library dependencies between modules (not high priority because so time consuming, and there are (ugly) workarounds)
- Decision Support: Some meaningful step (e.g. with simpler ETL solution: flattened data, generates table, SQL, extrapolate from that). Feels we are waiting for AES to eventually address.
Someday
Reference Application Someday
Feature | Description | Status | Point of Contact | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Add Order Entry UI | Add some sort of user interface for doing order entry. | We could polish up the orderentryui module, or do an OWA from scratch. Whichever we find easier. | ||
Add Patient Flags Module | NOT DONE | Still under development | ||
Responsive ability to the clinician facing dashboard |
| Accepted | ||
Core and modules to advertise capabilities that can be configured and manipulated |
| NOT DONE | Not started | |
MPI enhancements to Registration App and Registration Core | Production quality integration with OpenEMPI using HL7 v3 PIX/PDQ messaging standards | IN PROGRESS | Discussion on talk. | |
Pre-built Reporting Tools | This includes the ability to do several things.
| IN PROGRESS | Patient summary module does not provide adequate configuration and doesn't work in Ref App. 27-March: We could include Reporting REST documentation that Darius Jazayeri and the Andela team have done. | |
Using KenyaEMR as a use case, create a tool for subscribing an OpenMRS instance to a dictionary (e.g. the CIEL dictionary) | BETA | Nicholas Ingosi and raff |
| |
Basic support for retrospective data entry within the Reference Application
| NOT STARTED | Needs a user centric story - add to existing ticket | ||
OpenMRS Web Framework | From discussions in #MOZ15, we would like for the OpenMRS Platform to evolve toward providing a web framework that allows developers to add functionality using standard development tools (e.g., HTML5 + JavaScript against REST services, AngularJS apps, OWA , ...). | IN DESIGN | Ranking REST tickets on 5 Aug design call. Burke Mamlin and Darius Jazayeri discussed 24-July-2015 and Darius will make a Talk topic to move this forward. Bahmni technical deep dive scheduled for 4 June Developers Forum. 17 June design forum will discuss progress (coordinating various efforts). As well as look at how to make REST services more robust. Darius still working w/ Bahmni on fundamental pieces of their web framework to pull into OpenMRS (will talk about this on future call). 25 June dev forum on REST web services: how to substantially improve them W/ Burke Mamlin & Darius Jazayeri | |
Vertical Packaging | OpenMRS has a lot of flexibility and extensibility with a central concept dictionary, RBAC, forms, reports, modules, and apps; however, it's not always easy to know which metadata goes with which functionality. The goal of vertical packaging is to define best practices for managing and relating all of the components (metadata & behavior) that work together to solve a particular problem within OpenMRS. Eventually, we envision a way that someone could easily add the MDRTB package to their OpenMRS implementation to begin treating MDRTB patients... or upgrade their Oncology package, etc. | IN DESIGN | Need to look at the design we had and see if we can get it in 2.3 Burke Mamlin to share first draft of metadata mapping design on Talk. First step will be to add ability to map metadata, 22 June design forum Discussed on 20 May design forum. | |
Condition List | Manage & view patient problems (e.g., on the patient dashboard and integrated with diagnosis capture)
See also:
| DONE | Daniel took a look at condition list to see what we need to do to get the API in 2.3 and believes if we do not get volunteers on admin sprint then condition list will not be ready., 13 April WIP given on design call 1 June design forum to define how encounter diagnoses should work with conditions (and condition list). Talked w/ Bahmni BA (Saranya) about use cases and requirements on 15 June design forum | |
Basic Order Entry for meds and tests | Basic ordering of meds and tests "out of the box" in Reference Application. | STALLED | ||
Incorporate new cohort definition tool.
| STALLED | |||
Concept Management Improvements | Allow for concept merging and easier browsing through concepts and references terms without losing frame of reference. | |||
Improvements to Permissions (technical implementation) | Avoid giving all API privileges to users
| NOT DONE | Needs discussion and design Would like input from implementations, PIH (Mark, Mike, David) AMPATH, Kenya EMR, BAMI/JSS Need to reach out for inputs! Kiran has started helping with this | |
Provider Management | Would include provider types and ability to retire the old provider management module. Will remove UI library module once provider management is in the core. | NOT DONE |
EA-40Platform Someday
Feature | Description | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
Anonymous Patients | Support for unnamed John Doe patients
| NOT DONE | |
Test Patients | Support for tagging & recognizing test/fake patients, so they can be ignored within reports.
| NOT DONE | |
Clinical Encounter | Record the entire clinical transaction piece-by-piece as part of a Session, as opposed to via a Form. | Is this still relevant? | |
Patient Lists | e.g. "My Patients", "Inpatients on Service XYZ", etc. (Related to RA-202.) | ||
Program Enrollments | v1: capturing this data; v2: drive available forms/actions based on program state |