HealthViewer vs Mere Medical

Mere Medical is a free, open-source record viewer that runs in your browser. HealthViewer is a desktop lab tracker. Both keep data local. How they differ.

Mere Medical and HealthViewer agree on the important thing: your health records should live on hardware you control, not on a company’s servers, and neither needs an account. They differ in what they are built for. Mere is a free, open-source viewer for your whole patient-portal record. HealthViewer is a paid desktop app focused on lab results over time. We make HealthViewer, so we have tried to be specific about where Mere is the better choice.

Where Mere Medical is stronger

• It is free and open source. Mere is MIT-licensed, funded by donations, and you can read every line of its code. HealthViewer is $24.99 and closed source.
• It shows your whole record. Mere pulls conditions, medications, immunizations, allergies, care plans, and clinical notes as well as lab results, on a searchable timeline. HealthViewer imports lab results and, from files, medications, but not conditions, allergies, or notes.
• It connects to more portal systems. Mere supports Epic, Oracle Health (Cerner), athenahealth, eClinicalWorks (Healow), NextGen, Veradigm (Allscripts), and DrChrono. HealthViewer connects to Epic, Oracle Health, athenahealth, and eClinicalWorks.
• It runs anywhere a browser does. Use the hosted beta, install it as an app on a phone or computer, or run your own copy with Docker.

Where HealthViewer is stronger

• It reads lab PDFs. Mere imports only what your patient portals send. HealthViewer reads lab reports from Quest, Labcorp, Mayo, MyChart, and others, plus CSV, FHIR, and C-CDA files, so results from independent labs and paper copies join the same history.
• Encryption is on by default. Mere stores data in your browser, encrypted only if you turn on password protection. HealthViewer encrypts the whole file with AES-256 and your password from the start.
• Your data is a file, not browser storage. Browser storage can be cleared, and Mere’s own documentation warns that on iPhone, Safari deletes its data after 7 days unless you install it as an app. Mere’s backup is a manual JSON export. HealthViewer keeps everything in one file you can copy, back up, or move to a new computer.
• It is built around lab trends. Both chart results over time. HealthViewer adds medication start and change markers and your own journal notes on each chart, standard units and ranges across labs, device data from Apple Health, Dexcom, and Withings, and printable reports for appointments.
• No server involved. Mere’s hosted beta is convenient, but its documentation notes that for some portals, such as Healow, the server operator could see your access tokens unless you host it yourself. HealthViewer talks to your portal directly from your computer.
• It is a supported product. HealthViewer is a paid app with support. Mere is maintained by one developer, who is also a full-time medical resident, and is open about that.

Which one fits

Choose Mere Medical if you want everything from your patient portals in one free, open-source tool, all your results come through those portals, and you are comfortable managing browser storage or a Docker container.

Choose HealthViewer if your lab results come from several places, including PDFs, you want encryption without setting it up, or you want a single file you can back up. Both can sit side by side: neither locks your data in.

Download HealthViewer’s free trial, or read Getting Started.

Sources

• Mere Medical home page
• Mere Medical repository and documentation
• Mere Medical releases