13th OpenMRS Implementers’ Conference Successfully Held in Mozambique hosted by Jembi/UEMMoasis

13th OpenMRS Implementers’ Conference Successfully Held in Mozambique hosted by Jembi/UEM-Moasis

Jembi/UEM-mOASIS in collaboration with OpenMRS Community leads organized the 13th Implementers’ Conference in Maputo, which had over 200 international participants from four continents and 32 countries. OpenMRS is the most widespread and used open source medical record system in public health centers and hospitals across the world, with over 4,000 installations and has been present in Mozambique since 2008 currently covering 44% of the National Health System health facilities.

Maputo, Mozambique – January 2020 –
Mozambique hosted the 13th edition of the OpenMRS Implementers’ Conference from 2-6 December 2019 at the Joaquim Chissano International Conference Center, under the theme “Harmonizing and Strengthening the OpenMRS Ecosystem”. This year, community members gathered in the Mozambican capital to share and demonstrate how the different OpenMRS implementations can be leveraged to produce a stronger and more sustainable OpenMRS ecosystem. The conference also focused on consolidating various OpenMRS community initiatives, such as Microfront end development, community support and integration of OpenMRS with other
systems.
The opening ceremony was co-chaired by Dr. Sãozinha Agostinho, Director of Planning and Cooperation on behalf of the Ministry of Health (MISAU) and the magnificent Rector of the Eduardo Mondlane University, Prof.Orlando Quilambo, who were accompanied by Dr. Alessandro Campione, Program Director of Jembi / UEM-Moasis and Dr.Paul Biondich, Executive Director of OpenMRS. During her opening remarks, Dr. Sãozinha Agostinho appealed for everyone’s deep engagement and delivery during the conference and the implementation of the “OpenMRS
Academy” in Mozambique.
The conference was facilitated by Ms. Jennifer Antilla, Director of the OpenMRS Community, with support from other OpenMRS leads and experts through unconferencing sessions as per OpenMRS tradition where participants choose the themes they would like to discuss in parallel sessions and show different techniques and software that are being implemented, share a variety of experiences, challenges and successes each country is facing by using OpenMRS.
The event also included a 2-day hackathon where developers worked on topics pertinent to Mozambique and the
broader community. Jembi/UEM-Moasis, co-organizer of the event not only fully organized the event but also
sponsored financially and brought expert staff to support all sessions. The Mozambique team showed the different
OpenMRS implementations, shared the experience of using OpenMRS in Mozambique and led visits to Health
Facilities where OpenMRS is being implemented in Maputo City and Province. In general, all participants were
unanimous rating very positively the event. As final considerations, the OpenMRS Executive Director emphasized
strategic knowledge management action and suggested that MISAU and implementing partners take full
responsibility of the system.

“This project was made possible thanks to a partnership between Mozambique and the American people through funding from
PEPFAR – CDC.”

______________________

OpenMRS is a software platform and reference application that enables the design of a custom medical records system without programming knowledge (although medical knowledge and systems analysis is required). It is a common platform on which medical computing efforts in developing countries can be built. The system is based on a conceptual database structure that does not depend on the actual types of medical information to be collected or specific data collection forms and therefore can be customized for different uses. The OpenMRS community is a worldwide network of volunteers from diverse backgrounds, including technology, healthcare and international development