CareSphere
Connecting Healthcare, Community Care, and Public Health
An open-source health informatics initiative seeking an academic research home and collaborative partners.
Healthcare does not end at the clinic door. Yet the information systems supporting healthcare and community services often operate as though it does.
CareSphere is a proposed open-source, standards-based extension of OpenEMR designed to strengthen the connections between clinical healthcare systems, community-based organizations (CBOs), Community Information Exchanges (CIEs), and Health Information Exchanges (HIEs).
The initiative seeks to establish an accessible, interoperable foundation through which community organizations can participate more fully in coordinated healthcare delivery, document services, exchange relevant information, and contribute to measurable health outcomes.
CareSphere is currently seeking an academic or public research institution interested in assuming long-term institutional ownership and partnering in its research, development, implementation, and evaluation.
The Opportunity: Bringing Community Care Into the Connected Health Ecosystem
Healthcare systems increasingly recognize the importance of social and environmental conditions in determining health outcomes.
Yet the organizations addressing food insecurity, housing instability, transportation barriers, and other health-related social needs frequently operate outside the digital infrastructure supporting traditional clinical care.
Even where regional HIEs and CIEs exist, participation can be difficult for smaller community organizations because of technology costs, fragmented workflows, interoperability requirements, and limited organizational resources.
The result is a significant disconnect between clinical healthcare and the community services that support health and well-being.
CareSphere proposes to help close this gap.
Rather than building another proprietary referral network or replacing existing infrastructure, CareSphere is envisioned as an open-source community care platform capable of connecting with established clinical, public health, and social care information networks.
The objective is to make community organizations active participants in a connected care ecosystem, rather than isolated endpoints for referrals.
The CareSphere Approach
Extending OpenEMR for Community-Based Care
CareSphere builds upon the existing open-source OpenEMR electronic health record platform, adapting its clinical documentation, referral management, and interoperability capabilities for community-based settings.
The proposed architecture emphasizes:
Bidirectional, Closed-Loop Referrals
Enabling referrals between clinical providers and community organizations, with information flowing back to the originating organization regarding service engagement, completion, and outcomes.
Interoperability With Existing HIEs and CIEs
Connecting community care workflows with established regional and statewide information exchange infrastructure, using standards-based approaches rather than creating competing networks.
Community-Based Clinical and Social Care Documentation
Supporting appropriate documentation of social services and authorized clinical activities performed in community settings, with role-based access, privacy protections, and credentialing requirements.
Flexible Referral Intake
Accommodating organizations with different levels of technical maturity through FHIR-based exchange, secure clinical messaging, and manual intake workflows.
Open-Source Accessibility
Reducing dependence on proprietary software licensing while creating opportunities for shared development, community participation, and long-term sustainability.
Meaningful Outcomes and Learning
Creating opportunities to study care coordination, referral completion, healthcare utilization, organizational participation, and the effects of integrated clinical and social care.
Seeking an Academic Research Home
An Invitation to Universities, Graduate Laboratories, and Research Institutions
Astraea Strategic Advisors is seeking an academic or public research institution interested in adopting CareSphere as an institutional research and development initiative.
The intent is to move beyond an independently conceived technology project and establish CareSphere within a multidisciplinary research environment capable of supporting sustained development, community partnerships, rigorous evaluation, and competitive research funding.
Potential institutional arrangements include acquisition or transfer of project ownership, research program adoption, collaborative stewardship, or other structures that establish clear long-term responsibility for the initiative.
The founding vision would remain focused on open-source accessibility, community participation, health equity, and interoperability with existing healthcare and social care infrastructure.
Potential Academic Partners
CareSphere may align with research programs and laboratories specializing in:
Health informatics and biomedical informatics
Public health and population health sciences
Health services research and implementation science
Health equity and social determinants of health
Computer science and open-source software engineering
Healthcare interoperability and data infrastructure
Public policy and Medicaid delivery systems
Community-engaged and participatory research
An interdisciplinary academic environment could bring together the technical, clinical, policy, economic, and community expertise needed to develop and evaluate CareSphere as a practical model for integrated care.
A Grant-Supported Research and Pilot Opportunity
From Research to Community Implementation
CareSphere offers an opportunity to develop a research program around the design, feasibility, implementation, and evaluation of open-source infrastructure connecting clinical and community care.
With an institutional research partner, the initiative could pursue competitive funding through federal research programs, public health agencies, foundations, and state or regional innovation initiatives.
Potential research and development activities include:
1. Community Needs Assessment and Participatory Design
Partnering with community-based organizations, healthcare providers, CIEs, and HIEs to understand existing workflows, technical barriers, organizational capacity, and unmet interoperability needs.
2. Open-Source Platform Development
Configuring and extending OpenEMR to support community-specific workflows, secure data exchange, referral management, and appropriate clinical and social care documentation.
3. Community-Based Pilot Programs
Deploying and evaluating CareSphere in selected communities through partnerships with CBOs, healthcare organizations, Medicaid stakeholders, and regional information exchange networks.
4. Interoperability Research and Integration
Testing integration approaches using HL7 FHIR, existing clinical messaging standards, and relevant social care data models, while working with established CIE and HIE partners.
5. Outcomes and Implementation Evaluation
Studying feasibility, usability, adoption, referral completion, administrative burden, data quality, care coordination, and potential downstream effects on healthcare utilization and health equity.
6. Sustainability and Replication
Developing evidence-informed models for long-term governance, maintenance, financing, and adaptation across different communities and healthcare environments.
Potential funding pathways may include Small Business Innovation Research programs where eligibility and institutional structure permit, federal health research grants, public-sector demonstration funding, and philanthropic support.
Specific funding mechanisms and institutional arrangements would be developed collaboratively with prospective research partners.
Partnership Opportunities
Academic & Research Institutions
Institutional ownership or stewardship, principal investigator collaboration, research program development, grant applications, software development, and evaluation.
Government & Public Health Agencies
Community health infrastructure initiatives, Medicaid health-related social needs programs, public health modernization, pilot funding, and cross-sector data collaboration.
Health Information Exchanges & Community Information Exchanges
Interoperability design, network participation, integration pilots, data governance, and the extension of existing exchange capabilities to community organizations.
Community-Based Organizations
Participatory design, workflow validation, community implementation, service documentation, and evaluation of technology that reflects real operational needs.
Healthcare Organizations & Medicaid Partners
Clinical-community referral integration, care coordination, health-related social needs initiatives, population health research, and potential pilot sponsorship.
A Vision for Sustainable, Community-Centered Infrastructure
CareSphere is grounded in the belief that effective healthcare interoperability must extend beyond hospitals, clinics, and traditional healthcare organizations.
The objective is not to create another disconnected technology platform.
It is to explore how open-source technology, shared standards, academic research, and public-sector collaboration can strengthen the infrastructure that communities already depend upon.
A successful CareSphere research program would generate more than software. It would contribute implementation evidence, interoperable technical approaches, organizational learning, and practical models for connecting healthcare with community care.
The ultimate goal is a sustainable, adaptable model that communities can use, researchers can improve, and public health systems can build upon.
Help Shape the Future of CareSphere
Seeking Institutional Research Partners and Community Collaborators
Astraea Strategic Advisors welcomes inquiries from university research laboratories, graduate programs, academic medical centers, government agencies, HIEs, CIEs, community organizations, and potential funding partners.
We are particularly interested in identifying an academic institution prepared to explore long-term ownership or stewardship of CareSphere and collaborate on research funding, platform development, and community-based pilot implementation.
Let's explore how we can bring clinical and community care closer together.
Contact Astraea About CareSphere Partnerships