OKLAHOMA CITY - 
(EINPresswire via NewMediaWire) - March 11, 2014 - Healthcare Provider Search (HPS), an online tool designed to locate providers across the nation, is now available to the public.
Designed by a group of college students with no prior healthcare industry experience, the free open source-based service helps connect patients with providers in the U.S.
“It allows for easier, quicker and more reliable access to provider information. Patients could use the system to verify their provider's information. Providers could use it to verify the information that they have registered. The government could use the system to have easier access to provider records,” said Project Team Lead Cole Garien.
Team members include Project Manager Verbus M. Counts, EMR Technical Solutions (EMRTS); Team Lead Cole Garien from the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO), Edmond, Okla.; PHP Programmer Dedrick Silver from North Carolina A&T State University (N.C. A&T), Greensboro, N.C. and Web Designer Gwendolyn M. Terry from N.C. A&T.
HPS was designed in six weeks using only open source software (OSS), a software platform designed to provide the services of mainstream software free or at a fraction of the cost.
Team members rose to the challenge and developed a system that not only protects user’s information, but also is easy to navigate.
Starting Dec. 6, 2013, Counts and professors from both universities developed an internship project entitled “Web Site Application through PHP Programming.”
The internship’s intention is to take healthcare data provided by the federal government and provide it on a website that is easy to navigate. Students used OSS: LAMP (Linux, Apache, MariaDB and PHP) to develop code for the site.
The result was a tool that is free, easy to use and provides information on more than 4 million healthcare providers in the U.S.
“This project is helpful to providers because their services are promoted without them having to be actively involved. As long as they are legally licensed, they are listed,” Terry said.
Patients can search by name, location, provider ID number, taxonomy and/or specialty. The site includes listings for hospitals, medical groups, doctors, nurse practitioners and pharmacists.
“This project has a profound impact on patients in that it allows them to locate health care providers in their area that can address their specific needs. Empowered with information regarding their options, hopefully people will seek attention early,” Terry said.
The website created by the student team can be viewed at cloud-md.org.
To schedule a photo shoot or interview with Healthcare Provider Search’s project manager or students, please contact M.A. Smith at okcnewswriter@gmail.com or 405-757-7019.
About Healthcare Provider Search
Healthcare Provider Search (HPS) is an online search tool. HPS uses open source Linux, Apache, MariaDB and PHP (OSS: LAMP) to provide patients with a free, easy-to-use provider search engine. Patients can search for individual or group practitioners by location, ID, name or specialty. For more information, visit cloud-md.org.
M.A. Smith
EMR Technical Services, LLC
4057579983