OpenMRS is an open source medical records system or EMR with a global community.
Revamping the Wiki of the Largest Open-Source EMR
In this article, Technical Writer Fellow Prince Onyeanuna shares his experience working on the OpenMRS Wiki in 2024.
The beauty of working in an open-source community like OpenMRS is that you’re never truly alone. I posted a call for volunteers on Talk, our community forum, and soon, I had a small but mighty team ready to help.
My name is Prince, and in 2024, I had the opportunity to join OpenMRS as a Technical Writer Fellow. Over the past four months, I embarked on a journey to revamp the largest open-source EMR Wiki.
OpenMRS is a very big open source project, and naturally, their documentation matches that scale. But with size comes complexity, and the wiki—though packed with valuable information—needed much more clarity.
In this piece, I’ll share how I navigated the challenge of making OpenMRS documentation more accessible, organized, and easier to use.
Chapter 1: A First Glimpse—From Confusion to Clarity
Before stepping into the role, I explored the OpenMRS wiki to familiarize myself with what I’d be working on. I was hit with a chaotic blend of multi-colored boxes and a cluttered side menu—terms I didn’t understand, no clear path for a newcomer. There was too much information but no map to guide me through it. It wasn’t long before I closed the tab, frustrated and unsure of how I’d begin.
When I officially started, my first task was to define the project’s scope. I teamed up with Grace, the product manager at OpenMRS, and we zeroed in on four goals. The problem with the wiki wasn’t a lack of content—it was about restructuring what was already there.
That’s when Grace introduced me to Paul Adams, a UI/UX designer, and together we tackled the beast head-on. We held Miro board sessions and brainstormed a new architecture for the wiki. These meetings were crucial because they gave me a fresh perspective on the depth and breadth of the information at hand. By the end of it, we had a solid roadmap and a clearer direction.
Using Miro to plan an improved Documentation IA (Information Architecture) for OpenMRS.
Chapter 2: Building Bridges—Community Connections
As we moved forward, it became clear that the wiki wasn’t just disorganized; a lot of the content was outdated. I wrestled with the question: Should we delete those old pages? But deleting them felt like erasing history, so we pivoted and created an archive. The rich history of OpenMRS deserves to be preserved.
The next challenge was combing through years of documents to identify what needed to be archived. I was intimidated—this was no small task, and I was still relatively new. But the beauty of working in an open-source community like OpenMRS is that you’re never truly alone. I posted a call for volunteers on Talk, our community forum, and soon, I had a small but mighty team ready to help.
I created a Slack channel for us, and because we were spread across different time zones, I recorded Loom videos to delegate tasks and keep everyone in sync. Our goal was simple: flag pages that hadn’t been updated in five years, move them to the archive and give each page a banner noting it was outdated. Together we reviewed and archived well over 100 pages.
The community’s support was phenomenal. My teammates did the heavy lifting of flagging documents while I handled the movement of content. Slowly but surely, we began organizing the clutter, creating a proper archive that respected OpenMRS’s history while moving forward.
Using Loom to communicate with contributing community members across timezones and delegate tasks.
Chapter 3: The Blueprint—Implementing a New IA Structure
With the outdated content out of the way, it was time to dive into the real work: implementing the new Information Architecture (IA) we had mapped out during those Miro sessions. This was the backbone of the wiki’s transformation—reshaping the way information was structured so it became more intuitive for users to navigate.
One of the first things I did was redesign the introduction section. My goal was to create a smoother landing for new users—something I had hoped for during my initial exploration. I also began rewriting content that needed better structure, ensuring it wasn’t just available but also easy to follow.
Meanwhile, the archive team was still working hard, and their dedication allowed me to focus on refining the overall structure of the wiki. We were making progress, but there was still more to be done.
Chapter 4: Tying the Loose Ends—Final Touches
By the fourth month, the pieces of the puzzle were finally coming together. The archive was complete, the new IA structure was in place, and even the O3 developer documentation—previously hosted elsewhere—was now integrated into the main documentation space. The wiki was starting to look like the organized, user-friendly resource it was meant to be.
The last major hurdle was redesigning the homepage. Gone were the colorful, confusing boxes. In their place, I created clean, instructional content that guided users through each section of the wiki.
With the homepage sorted, there was one final issue—broken links. We had moved so much content around that it was inevitable. Moses Olara, a community member, and I teamed up to hunt down and fix every link that no longer led to the right page. It was tedious but necessary work, ensuring the entire documentation was coherent and functional.
At the End…
Looking back, my time working on the OpenMRS wiki was an intense, rewarding journey. What began as a daunting task turned into an incredible learning experience, not just in technical writing but in collaboration.
I couldn’t have done it alone. Grace Potma and Erica Kigotho were my pillars of support throughout the project, offering guidance and encouragement at every turn. Paul Adams’ insights into user experience were invaluable, and the volunteers—Moses Olara, Meelad Azizollah, Christine Belzie, and so many others—were the reason we succeeded in untangling the OpenMRS wiki.
The work isn’t finished—the wiki is still evolving. But it’s in a much better place than it was four months ago, and I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished together. OpenMRS is more than just a platform; it’s a global community, and I’m grateful to have been part of its journey, even if for a short while.
Thank you, OpenMRS, and thank you to everyone who made this possible!
OpenMRS sincerely thanks the CDC TAP (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Technical Assistance Platform) mechanism for playing a key role in making this project possible.
About the Author
