After two years of development, the FreeMED Software Foundation has released a stable version of FreeMED! The new .6 Version has lots of new features including a totally new modular architecture, HL7 support, medical billing functionality, scheduling system, and integrated security system. The new version is also compliant with both the HIPAA privacy and security rules. If you have not looked at FreeMED in a while… now is the time! You can download the new version from www.FreeMED.org
Enjoy!

Fred Trotter, CISSP
FreeMED Board of Directors

FreeMED is one of the oldest Practice Management Projects in existence. From the press release..

FreeMED is at its core a fully customizable electronic medical record. There are discrete interoperable loadable modules with support in both the static and dynamic portions of the program. Available are several switchable templates. FreeMED allows access to its core functions using an XML-RPC backend transport, and is fully HL7 compliant. There are several transports (import and export modules) available. There is record locking support for individual pieces of any patient’s electronic medical record. There are several options for navigation including menu bars, drop down GUI-type menus, which include features such as stored session data, and browseable page and patient histories.
USER ACCOUNTS: There is increased user account security in this version, with authentication being performed through sessions and using MD5 encryption in addition to the HTTPS (secure hypertext) protocol’s available 128-bit encryption. Individual user preferences may be selected and stored.
INTERNAL MESSAGING: There is a functional internal messaging system, which stores and verifies the status of messages to and from staff, physicians and patients. Patient messages are attached to the medical record, and are also accessable when browsing a patient’s record.
DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT: A scourge of medical offices has been the storm of papers which appear for each patient and which must be filed and then re-located. FreeMED uses a DjVu based document storage system for scanning, attaching, marking and retrieving all document forms including images, reports and tracings. The documents can be signed and traced.
SCHEDULING: Scheduling has been expanded and improved. There is now group scheduling, appointment movement, and multiple provider scheduling. There are user options to make multiple changes to the schedule without refresh.
INTERNATIONALIZATION: il8n (internationalization) and l10n (localization) are supported using the XML-based GettextXML format, allowing FreeMED to be viewed in any language that a translation is provided for. FreeMED also stores ISO set data, allowing the ability to store and maintain the demographic database in one language and ISO set, even if viewed in another.
BILLING: There is a working HIPPA-compliant billing system.
IMAGE MANAGEMENT: Images may be attached directly to the EMR or may be stored as part of the document management module. In this fashion such things as a picture of the patient may be attached directly into the medical record portion.