No Lock-In

GitEHR is engineered to be an interoperable file format for clinical records, free from Vendor Lock-In.

Vendor Lock-in is a well-known term in the technology industry. It describes the result of data tied inherently to a specific product.

One mitigation is interoperable file formats. For example, the .odf or .docx file formats allow one to use a different editor software, if the current becomes unaffordably expensive, without providing sufficient value.

In healthcare - and governmental IT in general - vendor lock-in seems to be a particular problem: there are no interoperable file formats. Even basic data in simple IT systems is wholly linked to the database schema of the software used.

Vendor lock-in leads to problems throughout the entire software lifecycle.