GitEHR

A Git-based, decentralised, multi-contributor Electronic Health Record system.

Design Philosophy

1. Git-based Storage

   • Leverages Git's distributed nature and version control
   • Each change is tracked and auditable
   • Multiple contributors can work on the same record
   • Full history is preserved

2. Immutable Journal Structure

   • Clinical entries are stored in chronological order
   • Each entry is committed to Git as a chronological history
   • Git content-addresses commits and file blobs, making stored objects tamper-evident
   • A planned policy checker will enforce GitEHR-specific append-only and authorship rules

3. Clear Data Organization

   • /journal - Immutable chronological entries
   • /state - Current clinical state that may be updated
   • /imaging - Medical imaging and related data
   • /.gitehr - Configuration and internal data

4. Security First

   • A known Git history is tamper-evident through content-addressed hashing; authorship and rewrite protection require future controls
   • Encryption at rest is planned, not yet implemented (roadmap R67/R68)
   • Digital signatures are planned, not yet implemented (roadmap R41/R69)
   • Transport format for secure data movement

5. Two-Part Architecture

   • Core CLI tool for data operations (gitehr)
   • Reference GUI for clinical use (gitehr gui)

This repository

This repository is a monorepo combining the core CLI tool, documentation, and folder structure templates.

Documentation

GitEHR's documentation is best viewed online at https://gitehr.org/.

All docs are also available in this repository under the docs/ directory in markdown format.

Install the CLI

After a GitEHR release is published to crates.io, install it with:

cargo install gitehr --locked

Cargo downloads the released source package and compiles it locally. Prebuilt archives and installer scripts are available from GitHub Releases; see the installation documentation for current distribution options.