{"id":1011,"date":"2025-11-24T02:26:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T02:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gk.palem.in\/articles\/?p=1011"},"modified":"2025-11-24T02:26:02","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T02:26:02","slug":"medplum-vs-openehr-what-is-good-for-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gk.palem.in\/articles\/medplum-vs-openehr-what-is-good-for-what\/","title":{"rendered":"MedPlum vs OpenEHR: what is good for what?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>When implementing healthcare solutions, one comes across various products, standards, and frameworks and often wonders what is the role of each in a Patient&#8217;s journey;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Below I try to compare and highlight the difference between a <strong>product for building apps<\/strong> (Medplum) and a <strong>standard for storing clinical meaning<\/strong> (openEHR).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Core Distinction<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Medplum<\/strong> is a <strong>Headless EHR Platform<\/strong>. It provides a backend (Database + API) based on <strong>FHIR<\/strong> standards. Developers use it to <em>build<\/em> apps quickly (UI, auth, workflows) using modern code (React\/TypeScript).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>openEHR<\/strong> is a <strong>Data Standard &amp; Architecture<\/strong>. It is a way of defining clinical data models (archetypes) so they are semantically strict and vendor-neutral. You buy\/build a &#8220;Clinical Data Repository&#8221; (CDR) to implement it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Role in a Patient Journey<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table class=\"has-fixed-layout\"><thead><tr><td><strong>Journey Stage<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>Medplum&#8217;s Role (The &#8220;App&#8221; Engine)<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>openEHR&#8217;s Role (The &#8220;Clinical&#8221; Memory)<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>1. Onboarding &amp; Intake<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>Digital Front Door:<\/strong> Powers the patient portal, registration forms, and scheduling UI. It handles the <em>transaction<\/em> of signing up and booking.<\/td><td><strong>Data Definition:<\/strong> Defines exactly <em>what<\/em> &#8220;Tobacco Use&#8221; or &#8220;Allergy&#8221; means structurally so the data captured is clinically valid forever.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>2. Active Care &amp; Treatment<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>Workflow Orchestration:<\/strong> Manages tasks (e.g., &#8220;Nurse to administer meds&#8221;). It routes messages between care teams and triggers notifications via API.<\/td><td><strong>Complex Modelling:<\/strong> Stores the granular details of a complex assessment (e.g., a specific oncology protocol) that doesn&#8217;t fit neatly into a standard generic field.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>3. Interoperability<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>The Connector:<\/strong> Because it is <strong>FHIR-native<\/strong>, it easily syncs data with Apple Health, other hospital EHRs (Epic\/Cerner), and billing systems.<\/td><td><strong>The Translator:<\/strong> Ensures that when data is shared, the <em>clinical meaning<\/em> is preserved (Semantic Interoperability), even if the receiving system is different.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>4. Long-Term History<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>Access Layer:<\/strong> Provides the API for a patient to view their history on a mobile app 5 years later.<\/td><td><strong>Longitudinal Record:<\/strong> Ensures the data created 5 years ago is still readable and valid today, even if the software app (Medplum\/frontend) has changed version or vendor.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Limitations<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Medplum<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Storage vs. Exchange:<\/strong> Medplum uses FHIR for <em>storage<\/em>. FHIR was designed for <em>messaging<\/em> (exchange), not necessarily for complex database architecture. This can lead to data nesting issues or &#8220;data bloat&#8221; when trying to store highly complex clinical histories.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Clinical Granularity:<\/strong> If you need to record a rare clinical observation that doesn&#8217;t have a standard FHIR &#8220;Resource,&#8221; you must build custom &#8220;Extensions,&#8221; which can be technically cumbersome to maintain.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>openEHR<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>No &#8220;App&#8221; Included:<\/strong> It is just the backend\/data layer. It offers no UI, no patient portal, and no auth widgets out of the box. You have to build the entire frontend yourself (or buy a separate tool).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>High Learning Curve:<\/strong> The modelling language (Archetypes\/Templates) is academic and difficult. Finding developers who understand openEHR is significantly harder than finding React\/FHIR developers (who flock to Medplum).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">So, what to use when?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Use <strong>Medplum<\/strong> if you are a startup or digital health company needing to <strong>launch a patient-facing app quickly<\/strong> with modern developer tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Use <strong>openEHR<\/strong> (often alongside a tool like Medplum) if you are building a <strong>long-term regional health record<\/strong> or a system where <strong>complex clinical data integrity<\/strong> over decades is more important than speed to market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you are building Healthcare solutions and need AI integration, such as Clinical Decision Support Systems, to empower the care takers (Doctors), please feel free to <a href=\"\/Contact.html\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"\/Contact.html\">reach out to me<\/a>;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When implementing healthcare solutions, one comes across various products, standards, and frameworks and often wonders what is the role of each in a Patient&#8217;s journey;<\/p>\n<p>In this article we look at to compare highlight the difference between a product for building apps (Medplum) and a standard for storing clinical meaning (openEHR).<\/p>\n<p>We also examine what to use when.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1015,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54942034672_9e4d5ef46c_w.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[42],"class_list":["post-1011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-healthcare"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54942034672_9e4d5ef46c_w.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfLaRd-gj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gk.palem.in\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gk.palem.in\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gk.palem.in\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gk.palem.in\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gk.palem.in\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gk.palem.in\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1014,"href":"https:\/\/gk.palem.in\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011\/revisions\/1014"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gk.palem.in\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gk.palem.in\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gk.palem.in\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gk.palem.in\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}