This community innovation has been accepted at the 2026 DHIS2 Annual Conference and will be in abstract track/lightning talk.
MSF LIME: Rapid EMR Deployment in Humanitarian Set
In humanitarian healthcare settings, manual paper-based patient records consume staff time. That time is urgently needed for direct care, clinical decision-making and program monitoring. MSF operates in countries like Iraq, where they need digital systems they can deploy quickly and easily, that work offline with the highest security and compliance standards. Working with Madiro and OpenFn, MSF developed and deployed a fully integrated EMR solution connecting OpenMRS with DHIS2 using OpenFn in Iraq, with planned expansion in other humanitarian contexts. The project addresses critical challenges: patient identification across fragmented care settings, clinical workflow management without reliable connectivity, longitudinal follow-up in mobile populations, and proper medical record-keeping under resource constraints. The solution leverages OpenFn and Madiro’s workflow automation capability to rapidly generate EMR configuration and integration mapping logic, achieving secure, compliant health data interoperability using local, offline deployments. This automation-driven approach reduced implementation time from months to weeks—a critical advantage in crisis response where every day matters for patient outcomes. The system was designed as a reusable model that responds to different settings, medical typologies, and levels of care, with a single backend configuration that works seamlessly across MSF’s operations. Rather than building custom integrations for each location, MSF created scalable infrastructure ready for rapid deployment across multiple field sites. Real-time automated data exchange supports improved diagnosis, care, and long-term patient follow-up while giving program managers clearer visibility into healthcare delivery across field sites. The integration seamlessly connects patient-level clinical data with aggregation tools, enabling data-driven decisions with up-to-date information flowing automatically from patient encounters to organizational dashboards. The MSF LIME project demonstrates that with the right orchestration approach, humanitarian organizations can achieve enterprise-grade digital health infrastructure at the speed crisis response demands.
Primary Author: Justine Stewart
Keywords:
OpenFn, Madiro, OpenMRS, DHIS2 integration, humanitarian health systems, workflow automation, offline-first EMR, interoperability, rapid deployment, crisis response, electronic medical records, health data exchange, resource-constrained settings, conflict zones, orchestration, scalable health IT