It is my pleasure to announce the release of 1.7.0 beta. Please help us and the community by taking a few minutes and testing the best features that you currently use and the new features you cannot wait to use. Then, should you be lucky to find any obscure bugs, please report them in our new ticket tracking system, JIRA.

New Features:

• Problem lists and allergy lists
• Location Hierarchy and Location Tagging
• Improved handling of Concept Tags
• Support for Spring Framework 3.0
• Migrate Boolean concepts to codes in the database
• Daemon user for background/system processes

To download and try this out (not in a production environment) and to test your modules, head over to the Prereleases page.

Release notes have also been posted on the wiki.

Thank you all
Best regards
-Sy

New Features:

• Problem lists and allergy lists
• Location Hierarchy and Location Tagging
• Improved handling of Concept Tags
• Support for Spring Framework 3.0
• Migrate Boolean concepts to codes in the database
• Daemon user for background/system processes

A big thank you to all of you that have contributed! Your hard work is its success. This release features some 48 developers and over 250 commits. To check some of your contributions, and to download and try this out (not in a production environment) and test your modules, head over to the release notes page.

Please continue to contribute all you can to make OpenMRS better and the most reliable and robust open source medical records system in existence today! We thank you all for making this all possible.

Congratulations all! We look forward to your continued support, dedication, and contributions.

Best regards
-Sy

Michael Downey is a systems administrator focusing on the OpenMRS community infrastructure. Michael will work with the Indiana University and Regenstrief teams on the annual work plan and offer his expertise in the area of capacity building programs. In addition to OpenMRS, Michael is also involved with multiple technology projects in West and Central Africa and working towards his Ph.D. at the Indiana University School of Informatics.

Jeremy Keiper supports the AMPATH/IU-Kenya OpenMRS installation in Eldoret, Kenya, with MySQL administration, application-level troubleshooting and enhancements, and module development. Jeremy also regularly contributes to the OpenMRS community by writing and working on tickets, reviewing code and design, and providing network and server administration.

Sy Haas is a systems engineer for OpenMRS and began working with the team in January 2010. He previously helped start a small printing company in Atlanta, Georgia, and worked as the head of IT. Its success led him into the corporate world where he provided computer programming for large and scalable web applications. His professional interests include UI, robotics, languages, and speech recognition.

Wyclif Luyima is a systems engineer for OpenMRS. Wyclif holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce (finance and accounting) from Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, and has always had an interest in computers, especially with open source software. He previously worked with the Nairobi, Kenya, subsidiary of JJ People, Ltd., an international software company.

Dawn Smith is the health information project coordinator for the OpenMRS team. While completing her Master of Public Health (M.P.H.) degree, Dawn worked with AMPATH’s Psychosocial Department in Eldoret, Kenya, in 2007, and in 2008, worked at the Institute of Development Management in Gaborone, Botswana. Dawn’s first project with OpenMRS is to establish it as a non-profit organization.

Daniel Futerman is a developer and implementer for Jembi. He began his work with OpenMRS in the middle of 2008. Daniel’s current focus is the implementation of an ARV clinic at the Tshwane District Hospital where he integrates and implements the pharmacy system, laboratory system, and the aggregate systems DHIS and RegaDB in addition to implementing OpenMRS.

Pascal Brandt works as a software developer on the implementations of OpenMRS. Within Jembi, Pascal contributes to OpenMRS projects in terms of the Reporting Framework and HTML Forms module. He will also work on evolving the Logic Service. In addition to working for Jembi, Pascal is pursuing a master’s degree in bioinformatics with the Bioinformatics Research Group at Stellenbosch University.

Ryan Crichton is a developer at Jembi’s Durban location. He currently focuses on national level aggregate data systems with OpenMRS through the use of SDMX-HD standard. He also contributes to additional projects which include the following: Digital Images in OpenMRS, iDart Pharmacy Integration, TRACnet integration in the SDMX-HD module, and DHIS 2.0.

Wayne Naidoo is one of Jembi’s software developers and responsible for the roll out and implementation of customized OpenMRS EMR for a private practice of doctors. Wayne currently develops within the new Reporting Framework and adding to its implementation base. He is also pursuing his doctorate in medical informatics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Regenstrief Institute, Inc., is an informatics and healthcare research organization that, through its research, enhances the quality and cost-effectiveness of healthcare.

Jembi is non-profit organization that advances Computer/IT based healthcare solutions in developing countries.

• Malte Friese, working on Advanced Concept Management with Justin Miranda & Mike Seaton
• Ruwan Egodawatte, working on Approximate Date Support with Jeremy Keiper & Wyclif Luyima
• Shivashankar Subramanian, working on Bug Analytics with Diederik van Liere & David Eaves
• Firzhan Naqash, working on Concept Proposal Module with Glen McCallum & Andy Kanter
• Kenny MacDonald, working on Remote Data Transfer Module with Ben Wolfe & Andy Kanter
• Suneeth Reddy Arra, working on Patient De-duplication Module with Shaun Grannis & James Egg
• Sai Manohar Nethi, working on Genome Data Storage and Drug Resistance Prediction with Pascal Brandt & Carl Fourie
• Andrey Stelmashenko, working on Global Caching Support for OpenMRS Logic Service with Nyoman Ribeka & Burke Mamlin
• Xiaohu Fan, working on HTML Form Entry Module Enhancements with Mark Goodrich & Darius Jazayeri
• Zhuangwei Lu, working on Localization Tools with Mike Seaton & Mark Goodrich
• Umashanthi Pavalanathan, working on Longitudinal Data Review Module with Sy Haas & Paul Biondich
• Rafal Korytkowski, working on Metadata Sharing Module with Darius Jazayeri & Jeremy Keiper
• Pratik Mandrekar, working on OpenMRS Media Viewer Enhancements for Radiology with Katherine Kuan & RJ Ryan
• Shazin Shadakath, working on OpenMRS Module Administration with Burke Mamlin & Ben Wolfe
• Christian Chircu, working on Remark Module with Wyclif Luyima & Sy Haas

These 15 students represent a very small portion over 130 (!) extremely high quality proposals we received this year and come from around the world. Google will generously fund their participation on these projects this summer, and we hope they will be a part of our community for years to come. Please help welcome them to the OpenMRS family!

Congratulations and thanks are in order not only to these students, but everyone who applied to work with OpenMRS in GSoC this summer. The selection process was a very difficult one this year, and we hope all who applied will continue their interest and involvement with OpenMRS.

Read more about OpenMRS Summer of Code 2010.

If you are already running 1.6.0 with no problems, there is no need to upgrade, as the bugfixes included are very minor.

See the release notes for more more information.

After a longer-than-expected delay, and a few bugfixes, the OpenMRS 1.6 Release Candidate is ready, and available on the prereleases page.

Have at it!

Assuming no bugs, this should become the official release by March 19th.

-Darius

Hi All,

Apologies, but there was a non-obvious-but-show-stopper bug in the Beta 2 from this morning. The offending code has been removed, and OpenMRS 1.6 Beta 3 is now ready for testing. You can get it here.

Assuming no further major bugs, we should have the release candidate out in a week. We’re looking for one implementation (in addition to AMPATH, who has generously offered) to test out the release candidate in production, so we can be totally sure it’s stable. Let me know if you’re interested in that being you.

-Darius

OpenMRS 1.6 Beta 2 is now ready for testing. You can get it here.

Assuming no major bugs, we should have the release candidate out in a week. We’re looking for one implementation (in addition to AMPATH, who has generously offered) to test out the release candidate in production, so we can be totally sure it’s stable. Let me know if you’re interested in that being you.

-Darius