OCL
Partner Stage: Established Contributor.
ℹ️ About
Open Concept Lab (OCL) is an open-source toolkit to simplify terminology management and enable interoperable health data exchange. OCL is recognized as a Digital Public Good and coordinates a global community of practice for collaboratively managing and harmonizing health terminologies, dictionaries, and mappings. The OCL API provides real-time electronic access to your terminology content and the OCL FHIR API enables standards-based integration into your health information system.
OCL Online (openconceptlab.org) is where you can use OCL’s open-source tools in the cloud alongside the global community and pre-loaded with key terminologies, like ICD-10, LOINC, SNOMED-GPS, ATC and CIEL. OCL is the primary distribution platform for the CIEL interface terminology, which is widely used in the OpenMRS community.
Website: https://openconceptlab.org/
Contact Person: Jonathan Payne
For Help with or Training for your Concepts and Terminology Management, contact the OCL Team if you are interested in some early help and longer opportunities!
Contact: info@openconceptlab.org
💼 Services
Concept dictionary development and maintenance
Loading open-licensed terminologies, like CIEL, ICD-10, SNOMED-GPS, etc.
AI-supported mapping of local content to target terminologies
Terminology governance and national health data dictionary program development
Training local teams on how to use OCL and best practices for Terminology Management
🤝 Community Activity
Weekly "OCL for OpenMRS Squad" (link)
Primary goal is to make multi-site and collaborative concept dictionary management for OpenMRS as easy and powerful as possible
🕰️ Badge History
2025: Awarded Established Contributor Badge.
🤝 Notable Community Contributions
Concept dictionary management in OCL TermBrowser, with OpenMRS-specific considerations built-in
OpenMRS-OCL Module to update local concept dictionary
OCL help & support for OpenMRS community members through weekly OCL Squad calls and the #ocl slack channel on OpenMRS Slack
OCL Course in the OpenMRS Academy
History of Community Job Board Posts:
Blog Posts, Articles, Presentations:
Shared Impact Stories: Ongoing search for implementers with success stories (e.g. MSF/Madiro, PIH, Sri Lanka)
2025: LOINC Conference presentation about MSF’s experience setting up OpenMRS forms way faster, decreased Time to Implementation
2021: https://openmrs.org/driven-by-real-needs-the-openmrs-dictionary-manager-web-app/
👥 People
List of Org Members in the Community: https://talk.openmrs.org/g/OpenConceptLab
Organization Alumni
N/A
Github Repos