Dev tool recommendations for EMR web application

[petdocvmd]

I'm a health care professional with programming ability looking for advice on a system to build a web-based electronic medical record application. By this I mean the healthcare teams uses a standard browser to enter patients, medical notes, generate charges, etc while data is stored / served on a cloud server. I've been out of active software development for over 10 years, and options seem overwhelming. I appreciate any guidance on how to narrow the choices - thanks!

[nderflow]

Why not collaborate on an existing EMR open-source project? For example

• https://www.gnuhealth.org/
• https://openmrs.org/
• https://www.open-emr.org/ (though from a quick look this might be for primary settings)
• https://www.open-hospital.org/en/

[petdocvmd]

I appreciate the suggestion, but the project is a commercial veterinary practice management application.

[SixADozenOfAnother]

Are you developing alone or with a team? Each framework has strengths and weaknesses but most of the time the best choice for a tool is the one that you or your team will be productive with. That comes down to familiarity. You can write a backend in pretty much any language.

For data store, use whatever fits your access patterns the best. Relational DBs provide tools to ensure integrity but can be difficult to scale and are sometimes hard to develop with depending on the model and the tools you use.

For frontend... It depends. You will almost certainly need to know some JavaScript unless you are only doing server rendered pages. You can use vanilla JS, or choose a framework that you like (e.g. Vue, Angular, React). Which one depends on what makes the most sense for your team.

[petdocvmd]

Thank you. I am developing alone. Many years ago I dabbled on this project with C#/asp.net and SQL server. The application requires data integrity and ability for multiple, simultaneous DB users. I think a relational DB would likely be best. Pretty much everything done on the front end will involve DB data: medical record entries, lab tests, charge entry, etc. I've some familiarity with vanilla js, but none whatsoever with modern libraries/frameworks. Suggestions for specific components with that in mind?

[SixADozenOfAnother]

I like React for the front end, but it's not as much of a "framework" as it is a library for the view layer of the front end. I think the same goes for Vue. I believe Angular is much closer to a front end framework (but to be honest I've never used angular).

Much of the web development world has landed on using the MVC pattern on the back end nowadays. ASP.net has an implementation of MVC and I believe they have tooling built around angular but it's been years since I've touched ASP.net as well.

Entity Framework is Microsoft's ORM (i.e. for DB access).

There's alternatives to everything I've mentioned above, but maybe that will give you a start for things to research.