Ottehr is a production-ready, open-source Electronic Health Record (EHR) system designed for developers. It aims to significantly reduce the effort required to build new EHRs and health-tech products by providing a modular, forkable, and white-labelable foundation. The system comprises a patient-facing portal and a staff-facing EHR application, both powered by a backend service built on Oystehr Zambdas.

How It Works

Ottehr leverages the headless EHR platform Oystehr as its primary service provider and backend host. Its architecture is modular, separating concerns into distinct components: a Patient Portal for appointment scheduling and telemedicine initiation, an EHR application for clinical workflows and practice management, and a Backend composed of Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) endpoints deployed as Oystehr Zambdas. This design facilitates customization and integration, allowing developers to extend or modify functionalities with a fraction of the effort typically involved in building such systems from scratch.

Quick Start & Requirements

To run Ottehr locally, users need Node.js 22.x and Terraform 1.13. A free Oystehr account is mandatory for the system to function as-is. After forking and cloning the repository, users must configure their environment according to deploy/README.md and then run npm run apps:start. The Patient app is accessible at http://localhost:3002 (using SMS for authentication), and the EHR app at http://localhost:4002 (requiring email invitation setup). Links to Oystehr documentation and the project's GitHub repository are available for further details.

Highlighted Details

• Patient Portal: Features include registration, appointment management, telemedicine initiation, rescheduling, check-in, intake chatbot, paperwork, and communication via text/email.
• EHR Application: Supports appointment management, patient queues, patient communication, schedule management, telemedicine, clinical charting (HPI, exam), eRx, RCM, and claims submission.
• Backend: Utilizes Oystehr Zambdas for FaaS endpoints, providing a scalable backend service.
• Customization: Environment variables allow modification of app names, project details, and support emails. Theming for both the Patient Portal and EHR apps is supported by copying and updating theme files.
• Testing: Includes a suite of end-to-end tests for quality assurance during customization.

Maintenance & Community

The project displays badges for contributors, open issues, and pull requests, indicating active development and community engagement. Specific links to community channels like Discord or Slack, or a detailed roadmap, are not explicitly provided in the README.

Licensing & Compatibility

The specific open-source license for Ottehr is not stated in the provided README content. This omission requires further investigation to determine compatibility for commercial use or integration into closed-source projects.

Limitations & Caveats

Ottehr's functionality is dependent on a free Oystehr account and its associated services. The absence of explicit licensing information is a significant caveat for potential adopters, necessitating clarification before integration into production environments.