LibreHealth EHR

LibreHealth EHR is a free, open-source electronic health record and practice-management web application for small clinics, and this page is for clinic owners and IT staff who found it while searching for “LibreHealth EHR” or a free dental EHR. There is no separate “LibreHealth EHR Dental” edition and no dental module: the project is a general medical EHR, forked from OpenEMR by former OpenEMR contributors and run under the LibreHealth umbrella, a member project of the Software Freedom Conservancy.

Be aware of its status before you invest time in it. The last tagged release, 2.0.0, dates from November 2017, and the code repositories have seen no meaningful activity since 2023. It still runs and is useful for learning how an open-source EHR is built, but it is not a product to put into a new production dental practice without a developer on hand.

LibreHealth EHR at a glance

What it does

• Patient demographics, history, problem and medication lists in a web-based chart.
• Appointment calendar with a patient flow board (patient tracker) for the front desk.
• Encounter forms: SOAP notes, vitals, review of systems, physical exam, treatment plan and an annotated-diagram form.
• Layout-based forms (LBF): an administrator can design new data-entry forms without programming.
• Billing tools inherited from OpenEMR, including a fee sheet and UB-04 claim options, oriented to US medical billing.
• Prescriptions and a simple drug inventory, plus an e-prescribing interface.
• Built-in reports, a report generator, SMS/e-mail appointment reminders and a backup utility.
• Role-based access control and an audit log viewer.

How dental teams use it

LibreHealth EHR has no odontogram, no tooth-numbered charting, no periodontal chart and no link to intraoral or CBCT imaging. What a dental team can realistically do is limited to generic record-keeping.

Build a simple dental exam form

1. Log in as administrator and open the layout-based forms editor.
2. Create a new form with fields such as chief complaint, soft-tissue findings, tooth numbers treated (as text) and recall interval.
3. Activate the form so it can be added to an encounter.
4. Test it on a dummy patient before real use; this is a text form, not a chart.

Run a teaching or test environment

1. Start the Docker image or install on a local XAMPP server.
2. Load only fictitious patients.
3. Use it to show students how scheduling, encounters and billing connect in an EHR, then compare it with a maintained system.

Install and first run

• Docker: the project publishes images to GitLab’s container registry; the image uses PHP 7.2 with Apache, and the compose files use MariaDB.
• Windows: install XAMPP or WAMP, set the time zone, raise PHP limits in php.ini (the README lists values such as max_input_vars = 3000 and memory_limit = 512M), disable MySQL strict mode, then open the application in the browser to run the setup script.
• Linux: Apache, PHP and MariaDB (preferred) or MySQL; unpack the release with permissions preserved (tar -p) and run the web installer.
• macOS: the install notes describe a MAMP-based setup.

Common gotchas: the code targets PHP 7.x, which no longer receives security fixes, so it may fail or warn on current PHP 8 stacks; installation can time out unless max_execution_time is increased; and MySQL strict mode must be off. Never expose a test install to the internet.

Limitations

• Dormant: last release in 2017, repositories inactive since 2023, so no security updates.
• No dental features at all: no tooth chart, perio chart, dental procedure codes or imaging bridge.
• Billing logic is built around US medical claims, not dental claims.
• No vendor support; you need your own PHP developer to patch it.
• No regulatory certification claims on the official project page.

LibreHealth EHR vs alternatives

If you want a maintained open-source clinical record, look at GNUmed (active, desktop client with PostgreSQL, strong document archive), OSCAR EMR (web-based, Canadian primary care) or Elexis (Swiss practice software). OpenEMR, the project LibreHealth EHR was forked from, is still actively developed and is the more realistic choice if you like this style of system. None of these is a dental practice-management system; a clinic that needs tooth charting should choose dedicated dental software and use these tools only for general medical records.

FAQ

Is there a LibreHealth EHR demo?

The LibreHealth website has a demos section that lists demo information for its projects. Because the project is dormant, a public demo may not always be online; a local Docker install is the reliable way to try it.

Is LibreHealth EHR free?

Yes. It is free and open source under the Mozilla Public License 2.0, with OpenEMR-derived code under GPL 2 or later. There are no licence fees, but hosting, setup and maintenance are your responsibility.

Does LibreHealth EHR have a dental module?

No. There is no dental edition, odontogram or dental plugin. You can create custom text forms, but that does not make it dental software.

Where is the LibreHealth EHR source on GitHub?

The official project page points to the LibreHealthIO/lh-ehr repository on GitHub, which mirrors the main repository on GitLab (librehealth/ehr/lh-ehr).

What is the LibreHealth Toolkit?

It is a separate LibreHealth project, a platform the EHR is described as building on. It is not a dental add-on.

Is LibreHealth EHR still maintained?

Not actively. The last release is 2.0.0 from 2017 and the repositories show no significant activity since 2023, so choose a maintained system for real patient data.

Can I install LibreHealth EHR on Windows?

Yes, on a local XAMPP or WAMP stack, following the README steps for php.ini and MySQL strict mode. Users then work in a web browser.

Last checked against official sources: 29 September 2026 (developer website: librehealth.io). Versions and licence terms change — confirm on the developer's site before deploying in a clinic.