Here’s the official description from openEHR.org:
The principal challenge for health ICT is to represent the semantics of the sector, which are far more complex than in other industries. Doing this requires a knowledge-oriented computing framework that includes ontologies, terminology and a semantically enabled health computing platform in which complex meaning can be represented and shared.
Huh. Now let’s hear it from oceaninformatics.com:
Think of openEHR as the open source health equivalent of the iPod/iPhone platform – a technical framework which will allow any compatible application, organization or provider to share ‘plug and play’ access to standardized data.
Okay, I think I get it. I want one now.