A new Black Book Research survey highlights Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Colombia as frontrunners in the rapid adoption of openEHR frameworks, with Doug Brown presenting the region’s growth trends at EHR Con 2025 in Barcelona.
BARCELONA, ES / ACCESS Newswire / October 13, 2025 — A recent flash survey by Black Book Research, involving 337 health IT executives and clinical leaders across Latin America, reveals that hospitals in Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and Mexico are quickly adopting openEHR as the foundation for national health record systems and cross-border data sharing.
The release of the report coincides with EHR Con 2025 in Barcelona, taking place on October 16 and 17, where Black Book Research will unveil new insights into the accelerating momentum of interoperability and data connectivity initiatives throughout Central and South America.
“openEHR is rapidly becoming the health data operating system for Central and South America,” said Doug Brown, President of Black Book Research. “In contrast to the gradual interoperability progress in North America—still tied to legacy EHR systems and outdated middleware—Latin American health systems are designing data platforms optimized for analytics, scalability, and cross-border care. This isn’t just faster progress; it marks a generational shift in how health data is structured and managed.”
The findings underscore a striking contrast: despite often operating with more limited resources, Latin American healthcare providers are outpacing their U.S. counterparts in adopting open standards for interoperability. Meanwhile, U.S. hospitals remain largely constrained by proprietary EHR ecosystems and the sluggish rollout of TEFCA (Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement).
Survey Insights
- 71% of Brazilian hospitals surveyed report active openEHR deployments or advanced planning, following its endorsement as the national standard by Brazil’s Ministry of Health.
- 43% of hospitals in Mexico and Chile are piloting openEHR platforms aligned with national health record initiatives.
- 68% of Latin American CIOs rank interoperability as their top health IT investment priority through 2027—outpacing AI, cybersecurity, and EHR replacement.
- 55% of respondents identified vendor lock-in as the primary reason for pursuing openEHR, compared to just 26% of U.S. respondents.
- In the United States, 72% of providers said TEFCA participation remains in the “pilot or planning” phase, and only 8% are exploring openEHR frameworks.
What openEHR Is — and Why It’s Important
openEHR isn’t a single product, but rather a platform standard designed to support lifelong, computable health records. It provides the foundation for:
- A Reference Model that defines how health data is structured, stored, and versioned
- Clinician-created archetypes and templates that capture the clinical meaning of the data
Combined, these components allow hospitals to develop vendor-neutral Clinical Data Repositories (CDRs), encourage modular application innovation, and ensure semantic consistency over time, across different languages, and throughout various national health systems. Data stored in openEHR supports a wide range of uses—from everyday clinical care to advanced analytics and AI-driven predictive modeling.
How openEHR Differs from the U.S. FHIR Framework
The U.S. approach centers on FHIR APIs, which are mandated by the 21st Century Cures Act and regulated through USCDI and TEFCA frameworks. FHIR primarily focuses on data exchange—how systems communicate with each other.
In contrast, openEHR emphasizes data persistence and meaning, addressing how information is stored, managed, and made computable for ongoing use.
Many global leaders are now adopting a hybrid strategy: using openEHR as the foundational clinical data repository to maintain accurate health information, while leveraging FHIR as the exchange layer to connect apps, patients, and networks. This dual architecture forms the basis of national health IT strategies in countries like Norway, Catalonia, and Slovenia.
Why Latin America Is Accelerating Progress
- Policy Alignment: Ministries of Health in Brazil and Chile have officially incorporated openEHR into their national digital health strategies.
- Cross-Border Care: With millions of patients crossing borders each year, true interoperability has become essential for effective healthcare delivery.
- Economic Urgency: Chronic diseases are expected to cost South America $7.3 trillion by 2050, driving investments in vendor-neutral, flexible data infrastructures to support prevention, efficiency, and population health management.
Worldwide Indicators of Expansion
Europe: Norway and Slovenia have already implemented openEHR on a national scale, while Catalonia’s medication management system now covers over 60 hospitals.
Policy Drivers: The European Health Data Space (EHDS), established in 2025, promotes high-quality, portable health data—creating an ideal environment for openEHR adoption.
Industry Validation: Major technology companies like Microsoft, along with leading EHR vendors, have joined openEHR International, underscoring the standard’s growing global importance.
“This is not just a Latin American story,” Brown emphasized. “It’s a global signal. If the U.S. and Canada don’t move beyond vendor-controlled EHR interoperability, they risk being leapfrogged by systems once thought to be far behind.”
Overview of Black Book Research
Since 2005, Black Book Research™ has been a trusted source in the healthcare industry for independent research on technology and service user experiences. They conduct unbiased satisfaction surveys, analyze adoption trends, and benchmark performance across health IT vendors and systems worldwide.
Expanding its presence throughout Latin America, Black Book has delivered comprehensive cross-country and regional studies on digital health transformation, interoperability, and vendor performance in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Panama, and Costa Rica. These insights assist policymakers, CIOs, and investors in understanding the evolving healthcare technology landscape. Committed to open data standards and transparency, Black Book has published its Global openEHR Industry Growth Report, which is available for free download at www.blackbookmarketresearch.com.
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