We will be discussing EHRs in my intro. health informatics class and I am looking for open-source software for my graduates students to interact with and conduct some data analysis.
There are a number of good Open Source EHR's are available. Try looking at https://www.medfloss.org/ which is run by the IMIA Open Source Group.
I note you are in Public Health. Have you seen the District Hospital Information System (DHIS) which is Open Source on http://www.hisp.org/services/dhis-2/
I had the honour of chairing the IMIA OS group so I may sound a bit biased but in the UK 14 years ago I ran a commercial EHR to great effect.