The openEHR Foundation is currently a not-for-profit company, limited by guarantee. Its founders were University College London, UK and Ocean Informatics Pty Ltd, Australia. It is regulated under the UK Companies Acts 1985 and 1989. The name 'openEHR' has been registered internationally as a Trade Mark.
As part of the new governance, the Foundation will be recreated as a new not-for-profit company, possibly in the form of aUK Community Interest Company, or else in the form of a Private company limited by guarantee (the same as the current form), commonly used for non-profits in the UK. The new organisation will be created by consultation of the interim board and prospective organisational members.
The openEHR Foundation vision is of a world in which healthcare routinely obtains benefit from ICT, in particular:
The Foundation is proceeding on the basis of three principles: rigour, engagement and trust. These correspond to the key activities of the Foundation, organised under the four Programs:
All of openEHR Programs will support health informatics education.
As we develop the specifications and engage clinicians, it is increasingly important to ensure that the platform benefits people using the health service. At this point the openEHR architecture ensures:
The next phase of uptake and implementation will require careful scrutiny by those using the health service and providers of personal health record services.
The success of openEHR is in no small part due to the formal acceptance of CEN 13606 as a European and ISO standard. This standard is based on many aspects of the openEHR design approach, and part 2 of the standard is a snapshot of the openEHR Archetype specifications. The openEHR Foundation will work closely with CEN, ISO, HL7 and OMG and other standards organisations on EHR-related and clinical modelling standards.
As terminology is a key-stone component of semantic interoperability, openEHR archetypes explicitly provide various ways to implement terminology bindings. The Foundation will work closely with IHTSDO on all terminology-related matters, as well as with other terminology maintainers.
The openEHR Foundation will continue to proceed based on its usual 3 key activities ... implementation, implementation, implementation.