News From The Development Team

Linda Murphy • February 3, 2025

The Development Team is always busy!

We’re either designing new functionality for the System, building that functionality or supporting clinics with technical issues. …and just very occasionally, we need to fix a Bug!


Over the last few months we have been focusing on two large projects, alongside Clinic Support - Project Connect & Custom Plugins for Hope for Haiti.


Project Connect …is a collaboration with the Ugandan Ministry of Health (MoH) and will achieve interoperability with DHIS2. Interoperability is when two different computer Systems ‘talk to each other’. DHIS2 is the World’s most popular Health Informatics system – and in use in each of the Nations we serve – it transforms raw health data into meaningful information, that Ministries can use to spot health trends, allocate resources most effectively.


The COVID-19 pandemic taught us all the importance of data, in terms of managing health inputs and fighting disease. Project Connect is doing exactly the same for Low Resource, High Impact Clinics across Uganda… We collect the data in the Primary Care Health Centres using Outreach EMR, we anonymise and aggregate that data, and pass it to DHIS2. Interoperability!


We are in the final stages of certification with the Ugandan MoH and hope to be deploying this important new functionality before the end of the year. We may be the first supplier to achieve this in Uganda – all enabled by your support. Thank you!


Hope for Haiti Custom Plugins 

The Outreach EMR System has a modular architecture, which means that it is built-up of a series of ‘blocks’ of functionality, and clinics can pick and choose from a library of Plugins and build the System to meet their clinic’s needs.


It also means that the System can evolve, elegantly, in terms of functionality. ‘Extensible’ in programming parlance. As a joint venture with Hope for Haiti, we are developing three custom plugins. Improvements to our Prescriptions and Cash Plugins, and a totally new Dentistry Plugin.


These mini-projects are a Joint Venture in that although Hope for Haiti are funding the developments, once complete, they will be made available to all of our clinics. In this way, our clinic partners who can afford to fund new development, benefit all our hundreds of thousands of patients, which is just fabulous.


Thank you Hope for Haiti!

Bass Stewart, Systems Development Lead.

Find out about our Fundraising

By Linda Murphy • March 14, 2025
Fundraising and Events

Dr Elizabeth and Mark Fowler visit Uganda this week.

By Bill Tams • February 14, 2024
Dr Elizabeth and Mark Fowler are back in Uganda this week. Here they are with Henry Muwonge from Uganda UK Health Alliance at the British High Commission in Kampala. They had a positive meeting with Health Policy Officer Brenda Kabibi OutreachEMR look forward to exploring further potential partnerships with the BHC. Check facebook for more updates. https://uukha.org

HIFA Welcomes Outreach EMR as a supporting organisation.

By Bill Tams • October 20, 2023
OutreachEMR are delighted to be recognised by and work with HIFA to achieve our common goals

Great News from Bushika Uganda

By Bill Tams • July 7, 2022
New EMR Server in Eastern Uganda

Outreach EMR is our new name

By Bill Tams • November 19, 2021
Our name may change but we don't!
Enoch Magala clinic director

A New Year Starts With a New Clinic Using EMR4DW electronic medical records

By Bill Tams • January 28, 2021
All at EMR4DW, Medical Records Save Lives, are delighted to congratulate Enoch Magala, and the whole team of Centre for Youth Driven Development Initiatives (CFYDDI). On the opening of their clinic in Jinja Uganda this month. Several of us have been able to visit Enoch and witness the building of this wonderful facility. I visited along with EMR4DW founder’s Dr Peter Smith and Bass Stewart in 2018, to give advice and demonstrate EMR4DW to the enthusiastic staff. We might be in lockdown in the UK, but the picture shows our Ugandan Senior Ambassador, Julius Okello who spent 2 days helping set up EMR4DW and give staff training. Don’t look so worried everyone!! Most clinics tell us staff, with no previous computer skills, can learn the basics in a couple of days. So it will get better! We all wish you the absolute best of luck and are certain this clinic along with EMR4DW electronic medical records will only help in the wonderful work you do. Watch this blog for further updates.

Happy New Year to all in Clinics using EMR4DW

By Bill Tams • January 4, 2021
The Covid pandemic has made 2020 a very difficult year for the whole world. Clinics using EMR4DW are often at the forefront of such difficulties. They are often working in remote poorly funded areas making their work, caring for their community, extremely challenging. Our thoughts. prayers and best wishes go out to every one of them. There is a glint of hope for the future as research on treatment of covid-19 showing simple inexpensive treatments can help as well as vaccines developed, in Oxford, that, I understand, have promised to be available to all countries at no profit. We hope the WHO can help to roll this out to all vulnerable people wherever they are. One thing we are proud of is that our computer software EMR4DW is able to code Covid-19 as a disease allowing our clinics to monitor case numbers in their communities and inform health departments quickly and accurately. When the vaccines are available every clinic will be able to document every covid-19 vaccine given. Let's hope it is soon! Keep up the good work in 2021.

Testing, Testing, Testing

By Bill Tams • June 6, 2020
In coping with COVID-19 the World Health Organisation said the only way to deal with the virus is to Test,Test and keep Testing. We at EMR4DW have been in lock-down at home for some weeks but have been using the time to benefit our users by listening to the WHO. We have been testing EMR4DW Version 4.0 to ensure it is working perfectly before we roll out our implementation phase later this year. The picture shows one of our regular System Development ZOOM meetings, where we work through our testing programme and plan how we can include our User Manual within the system on screen. I know some clinics are desperate to access the latest version of EMR4DW and we are very keen that you get it but feel time spent testing now will benefit everyone once we are certain it is ready. Watch this space for further updates.

EMR4DW helping clinics in Uganda cope with COVID-19

By Bill Tams • May 7, 2020
Our thoughts have been with ALL our clinics around the world but this message from Uganda did lift our spirits! Maegan Hubbard told us her husband Dr. Emma has been using EMR4DW for all the Covid suspects in Manafwa Uganda! He’s been using it to report to the Task Force weekly and track all the patients on self quarantine and institutional quarantine. It’s made life so much easier than a spreadsheet. Each patient has a COVID Health ID to clearly identify them. EMR4DW has improved search facilities for diseases and with direct links to data collecting hubs via DHIS2 for fast and accurate data transfer. Thanks Maegan keep all your family safe and keep up the good work.

We are still here!

By Bill Tams • March 26, 2020
All of us at EMR4DW, medical records save lives, wanted to say we are thinking of all our friends and clinics on the front line in the global corona virus pandemic. Rest assured we are still available to help should you have data problems. Please let us know how you are, take care and stay well. For information: These emergency disease codes have been suggested by the World Health Organisation WHO Emergency use ICD codes for COVID-19 disease outbreak The COVID-19 disease outbreak has been declared a public health emergency of international concern. o An emergency ICD-10 code of U07.1 is assigned to a disease diagnosis of COVID-19 confirmed by laboratory testing. o An emergency ICD-10 code of U07.2 is assigned to a clinical or epidemiological diagnosis of COVID-19 where laboratory confirmation is inconclusive or not available. o The title of U07 will be changed back to ‘codes for emergency use’ o In ICD-11, the code for the confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 is RA01.0 and the code for the clinical diagnosis (suspected or probable) of COVID-19 is RA01.2.
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