Updated analysis shows procurement moving toward data that outlives the application, with openEHR + HL7 FHIR emerging as a pragmatic target pattern for exchange and longitudinal persistence.
LONDON, UK / ACCESS Newswire / January 21, 2026 / Black Book Research today announced the availability of its updated market intelligence report, "Global Growth Opportunities for openEHR Adoption in 2026-2027." Industry stakeholders can download a complimentary copy at https://blackbookmarketresearch.com/global-growth-opportunities-for-openehr-adoption-in-2026-2027
The 2026-2027 update refreshes Black Book's baseline readiness analysis and details why openEHR's global momentum is increasingly tied to AI-usable longitudinal clinical records, digital sovereignty, and policy-driven modernization, not interoperability alone.
The report documents a continuing structural shift from application-centric EHR deployments to data-centric platforms that treat longitudinal clinical data as durable infrastructure. Health systems are under simultaneous pressure to exchange data across fragmented networks, improve clinical data quality for decision support, and make data "AI-usable," not just human-readable. In Black Book Research's 2025 baseline assessment (a 30-country readiness scan), openEHR is positioned as a practical path for ministries and multi-provider systems to modernize without locking national clinical assets into a proprietary vendor data model.
"What we're measuring in 2026-2027 is a structural shift: countries are no longer buying 'EHR applications' first-they're procuring durable clinical data infrastructure that is AI-usable, semantically governed, and engineered to outlive any single application lifecycle.." said Doug Brown, Founder of Black Book. "The openEHR International organization. its management team, board, and global membership, deserves real credit for turning that vision into a viable option that ministries, health systems, and developers can build on without defaulting to proprietary commercial EHR lock-in. When paired with HL7 FHIR for exchange, openEHR becomes the persistence and meaning layer for longitudinal records, supporting sovereign, composable digital health ecosystems where clinical information stays computable and reusable across decades of vendor and application churn."
What's New in the 2026-2027 Update
Black Book's updated analysis finds that openEHR's adoption momentum is no longer explained only by interoperability in the narrow sense. Growth is increasingly linked to the following market and policy forces:
Digital sovereignty and "data that outlives the application" procurement language
Europe's EHDS-driven modernization expectations, including interoperability-first gating, modular modernization, and secondary-use readiness
Clearer alignment across standards ecosystems (openEHR + HL7 + SNOMED + OMOP/OHDSI), reducing perceived "standards wars" risk
A visible leadership transition at openEHR International that may further tighten practical alignment with HL7 globally during 2026-2027
Procurement Reality: "Data That Outlives the Application"
Health systems are increasingly writing requirements that implicitly demand:
A durable longitudinal record
Semantic consistency across multi-provider care networks
Replaceable applications (composability), rather than single-vendor monoliths
Black Book's updated findings reinforce that openEHR is frequently evaluated as foundational architecture enabling future-proof flexibility, computable semantics, and vendor neutrality, especially relevant in national or decentralized environments where clinical data must remain stable across application and vendor change.
Converging Standards: openEHR + HL7 FHIR as a Pragmatic Target Pattern
The report documents a pragmatic division of labor becoming the market norm:
HL7 FHIR for transactional exchange, APIs, and network-to-network interoperability
openEHR for structured, semantically governed persistence of the longitudinal clinical record
This "both/and" approach reduces adoption friction and lowers the risk of building strong exchange without durable clinical meaning and reuse. It also supports composable modernization by allowing applications to be replaced while the longitudinal record remains consistent and governed.
Global Exemplars Referenced for Large-Scale openEHR Directionality
The following regions are consistently referenced in the report as leading examples of large-scale openEHR implementation directionality:
United Kingdom (NHS): multi-region shared care approaches using openEHR patterns to support vendor-neutral information storage and multi-provider access
Catalonia (Spain): openEHR-powered longitudinal health record for 8+ million residents
Nordics (Norway, Sweden, Finland): mature adoption through national vendors and structured clinical models at scale
Netherlands, Germany, Slovenia: procurement and reform environments increasingly favor semantic interoperability and durable data platforms
Brazil: positioned as a Latin American momentum leader, with ministry-level endorsement language and regional initiatives
Countries Driving the Next Wave of Expansion (2026-2027 High-Growth Markets)
South America: Chile, Colombia, Argentina (with Brazil as the regional anchor)
Black Book identifies Chile, Colombia, and Argentina as high-growth environments for openEHR-aligned modernization, with a consistent pattern emerging across these markets:
National or regional interoperability programs increasingly standardize exchange using HL7 FHIR
As exchange matures, longitudinal data persistence, semantic normalization, and analytics readiness become the limiting factors
openEHR adoption accelerates when governments and major provider networks recognize that exchange alone does not produce a computable, reusable longitudinal record
Why openEHR is growing in Colombia
Colombia is highlighted as a representative example of a country building strong national interoperability momentum. As exchange matures, pressures rise to improve:
Cross-provider clinical coherence (not just transport)
Longitudinal continuity (not just episode summaries)
Data quality for analytics and AI (not just documentation)
In this context, the report positions openEHR as the persistence and semantic modeling layer that can sit behind FHIR-based exchange, reducing the risk of becoming trapped in a FHIR messaging ecosystem without a durable clinical knowledge layer.
Why openEHR is growing in Chile and Argentina
Chile and Argentina reflect typical LATAM drivers, including:
Multi-payer, mixed public/private complexity requiring interoperability beyond single-vendor solutions
Cost sensitivity driving interest in vendor-neutral platforms and modular procurement
Increasing interest in national registries, telehealth, medication safety, and population health analytics-each benefiting from structured, semantically consistent data
Africa: Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia
Across Africa, the report finds openEHR-aligned strategies become compelling where countries are scaling national digital health assets and need to unify programmatic datasets into patient-centric longitudinal records.
Why openEHR is growing in Rwanda
Rwanda is cited as a high-performing digital health environment with national-scale ambition. Countries with strong program ecosystems (immunization, maternal-child health, HIV, registries, and reporting platforms) commonly reach a turning point:
Program systems and reporting platforms are not, by themselves, longitudinal clinical records
Data quality and semantic consistency become critical as countries move from reporting to integrated care delivery
openEHR becomes attractive as a durable national clinical data substrate supporting both care and public health
Why openEHR is growing in Kenya and similar markets
Kenya's long-term use of open-source health systems creates familiarity with open ecosystems, often increasing openness to:
Vendor neutrality
Modular application landscapes
National modeling and reuse approaches
Why openEHR is growing in South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, and Ethiopia
These markets often share drivers including:
National health ID and federated-care ambitions
Uneven infrastructure maturity across regions (requiring scalable, standards-based approaches)
Rapidly increasing pressure for better continuity of care and population health analytics
For these environments, the report emphasizes openEHR's differentiator is not technology novelty; it is a governance-friendly, reusable data modeling approach that can scale with constrained budgets and changing vendor landscapes.
Europe: EHDS-Driven Modernization Increases the Pull for Semantic Platforms
Across Europe, EHDS-driven requirements and secondary-use expectations increase pressure for data that is not just interoperable, but semantically consistent and reliable for analytics. The report notes this environment favors platform architectures and durable clinical modeling approaches, particularly in multi-vendor landscapes.
HL7 FHIR and TEFCA: Positioning openEHR When Applicable
Black Book notes that TEFCA is an exchange and trust framework, while openEHR is a persistence and semantics architecture. In the architectural stack:
TEFCA (exchange governance) and HL7 FHIR (API and exchange artifacts) can define how data moves across networks
openEHR can define how high-fidelity clinical data is stored, governed, and reused over time inside an enterprise, region, or national platform
As TEFCA increasingly supports FHIR-enabled exchange patterns, the report notes that demand rises for consistency in the underlying data. openEHR's semantics-first persistence model can reduce downstream normalization burden and improve the reliability of exchanged content. Black Book emphasizes this matters because openEHR adoption is as much an operating model shift as a technology choice; communities with reusable content, shared governance patterns, and implementation playbooks reduce program risk.
Black Book highlights the following expansion opportunities during 2026-2027:
Phase-2 national interoperability programs: countries that standardize exchange are now seeking durable, computable longitudinal persistence
EHDS-driven requirements: Europe increasingly needs semantic consistency for both care and secondary use
Cross-standards convergence: stronger alignment between openEHR and HL7 ecosystems reduces adoption hesitation
Emerging-market leapfrogging: countries without entrenched proprietary lock-in can implement data-centric platforms earlier
Local innovation and digital sovereignty: open platforms stimulate domestic ecosystems rather than concentrating spend into a few global vendors
About Black Book Research
Black Book Research is a healthcare market research firm known for independent, crowd-sourced ratings and in-depth market insights. The firm advises healthcare leaders and technology buyers on emerging health IT strategies and vendor performance. In the fourth quarter of 2025, Black Book Research conducted a global survey of approximately 400 openEHR users and stakeholders, including IT executives, clinical informaticians, national health authority representatives, and digital health architects. The assessment framework incorporated policy alignment, interoperability maturity, informatics workforce capacity, investment levels, and preparedness for AI and analytics. Countries were ranked for readiness to support regional or national-scale adoption. Contact: research@blackbookmarketresearch.com 1.800.863.7590 https://www.blackbookmarketresearch.com
Source: Black Book Research, "Global Growth Opportunities for openEHR Adoption in 2026-2027" (January 2026).
SOURCE: Black Book Research
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