To improve healthcare and better manage medical information, the Peace Corps will provide its volunteers stationed in 77 countries with electronic health record systems in 2013. The systems will allow volunteers to record patient records and provide a searchable database of medication, allergy and vaccination lists. Peace Corps staff in each country will use a laptop or mobile device to record basic medical information and synchronize it to OpenEMR, a free and open source application that will be used in Peace Corps post countries for practice management.

The organization faced some challenges in planning the electronic record system. Due to lack of affordable Internet connectivity in developing regions, primarily in Africa and the Asia Pacific, Peace Corps volunteers experience big delays in processing network data. "An overall solution must work for all posts, not just the well-connected ones," the agency said.

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