Press Release
A little over a year after the Department of Public Health (DPH) and Information Systems for Health (IS4H) Bahamas launched the pilot of BahamasEMR+ (BEMR), users at the pilot sites say while there is still work to be done, the application has had a demonstrated positive impact on clinic operations and patient care. Meanwhile, Acting Director of Public Health Dr. Phillip Swann, government Focal Point for IS4H Bahamas, said he was “very encouraged by this success” and that he had “every faith that once fully implemented the health system will continue to provide the depth, scope and responsiveness of service to its patrons.”
BEMR is the localized version of OpenEMR, a popular open source electronic medical record software. Information and communications technology (ICT) experts on the IS4H Bahamas development team tweaked the software to make it suitable for the Bahamian public health system, and in February 2025, BEMR was launched in the Gambier and Adelaide clinics.
Over the past year and change, use of the software in the real world has spread to other DPH facilities, which has provided feedback that allowed the development team to implement fixes and adjustments to make BEMR even more suited to daily operations in the public health system.
Pilot Background
Dr. Swann said, “In February 2025, the Adelaide and Gambier Clinics began the journey toward digitization of medical encounters as they became pilot sites for the implementation of electronic medical records in the Department of Public Health’s network of clinics. The past 16 months have been a roller coaster of sorts but have proven to be an invaluable proving ground for the platform. Thanks to the dedication and commitment of the staff at these two clinics, there was the development of automations within the electronic medical record that demonstrated the benefit of the platform in reducing the manual daily reporting load for nursing staff.”
On The Ground
Nurse Brinique Jacques, IS4H Bahamas’ Change Champion at Gambier Clinic, was direct in both her praise and her critique of the system. She said, “The reality is, it does make the process easier. It does make registering patients, getting them to the screening areas, getting them to nurses to be interviewed, getting them to doctors and then to treatment – it does streamline the process.”
“BEMR is working 90% of the time. And with that 90%, there are things on BEMR that are still missing, which is causing the process to be more tedious than it should be…My experience is that (BEMR) is pretty straightforward. It does make it easier, especially when it comes to communicating between the healthcare professionals. Use of it is fairly good. If I give it a grade, it would be about 80%. But the markdown is based on the items that are missing. Those are the things that make it a little bit harder to use,” she said.
Meanwhile, Nurse Atiya Deal, Change Champion at Adelaide Clinic, said, “Since the programme first started, it has been exceptional in certain areas and in other areas we have some (issues) that we know they are still working on. Overall, the system has been working great. It has allowed us to communicate with each other better, whether it be in Nassau or the Family Islands; data and recordkeeping have been great, and real time experience with patients has been improved.”
Nurse Deal singled out patient data entry and recordkeeping as highlights of the application.
“It has been much easier to accommodate patients, whether it be entering them into the system or finding and entering their data,” she said, adding that BEMR has improved time management for patients, doctors and nurses at Adelaide Clinic by decreasing patient wait times and speeding patient file retrieval, among other things.
Global Alignment
Dr. Swann noted that in Geneva, Switzerland, during the 79th World Health Assembly in May, 2026, leaders from Ministries of Health around the world addressed the role of electronic medical records and digital systems in improving access to health services – especially in small island developing states (SIDS), and how the thrust of universal health coverage and universal access will only be successful if there is the responsible integration of electronic medical records.
Dr. Swann said, “This alignment confirms that indeed The Bahamas remains on the cusp of global health improvements and I am so proud that the small DPH clinics at Adelaide and Gambier have played such a critical role in this journey of digitizing health information in the public sector of The Bahamas.”
About IS4H Bahamas
Information Systems for Health (IS4H) Bahamas is a transformative national initiative supported by PAHO/WHO and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). It integrates digital tools and data systems to strengthen health services, empower patients, and improve outcomes nationwide.
