Comparative Study of Different Open-Source Hospital Information Systems in Order to Develop an Application for the Healthcare Institution’s Needs in Morocco

Abstract

The information system (IS) was becoming an indispensable management tool in various fields of human activity. In the health sector, it has an important role in improving patient management and quality of healthcare services, in optimizing resources and in effectiveness of biomedical research. The hospital information system (HIS) began to emerge in recent decades in many developing countries. Our study aims at first for examining many different open source applications and, then, selecting the most appropriate applications to use and adapt for healthcare structures in countries where the public management allocated budgets, in the different healthcare structures, does not allow the purchase of a commercial solution and a necessary after-sales services. A bibliographical study does not allow us to discover related works. From were, the great interest of our comparative study. We have studied nine open-source hospital information systems: OpenMRS, OpenEMR, MediBoard, HospitalOs, HOSxP, PatientOS, Care2x, MedinTux and OpenHospital. We have used the SQALE method to evaluate the quality of these applications. We have got the source code using the “sourceforge.net” website. We have used the Sonar platform to measure the source code’s quality, and the “OpenHub.net” website to get the evaluation of the activity of Open-Source communities of each HIS. The obtained results allowed us to select MediBoard and OpenEMR as a basis to develop an application for the healthcare institution’s needs, in particular for the first and second levels, in Morocco.