It’s essential to understand what EMR integration means to know how your organization can provide an integrated work environment that includes secure health data, messaging, and contact information stored within one network of electronic records.
Healthcare providers, medical practitioners, and hospitals spend millions of dollars on EMR systems. However, most of these electronic medical records are isolated and are not compatible with each other, which results in a decrease in collaboration and data sharing among healthcare organizations.
What is EMR Integration?
In the previous blog, we defined EMR as a database that holds information about an individual or group of patients within a single healthcare provider. Electronic medical records (EMRs) are digital versions of a patient’s chart.
EMR systems digitally store your healthcare data allowing you to benefit from better convenience and optimal cost-efficiency. However, developing a system that can smoothly integrate all the digital components of your care on a single platform is not easy.
We need EMR integration to help bridge the gaps and create a seamless solution for your healthcare applications.
EMR Integration creates a platform for healthcare professionals and patients to communicate effectively, reduce errors, and enable doctors to track crucial information. Most medical practices use these platforms to streamline all their patient data in one place.
Integrating an EMR system into your medical practice can be beneficial as it will allow patients to make appointments and check their records, speak with you from any point in the world, and ask questions to the doctor – all while increased efficiency and better patient care is realized! This can have a significant impact on your medical practice.
EMR Integration Process
There are five stages to a successful EMR integration.
Stage 1: Plan
In this stage, you determine and set your goals. You may ask your staff and board members to investigate your organization’s needs.
As you identify the needs, you can start planning how to address them one by one. Involving everyone in the team when setting goals and planning will surely lead you in the right direction.
Stage 2: Design
In this stage, you develop a proposed solution that fits your organization’s needs. Make sure that the design is easy to use to maximize its efficiency.
In this stage, you create a blueprint of your desired workflow.
Stage 3: Build
In the initial build, you establish connection and authentication into the systems you are integrating with and extract the data. You will build the initial versions of the data mappings and transformations to load into the other system.
Stage 4: Test
The first test of the EMR. Integration is about functionality. You need to validate the integration adequately transforms and transfers the data. Before launching, you need to test for bugs and other vulnerabilities.
It’s important to do quality control of the integration software and make sure everything runs smoothly and serves its intended purpose. The security protocol should also be of top priority when testing for vulnerabilities in your system.
Stage 5: Implement
After testing the EMR integration software, the next step is to ensure that the IT staff are given a training on how to use them.
The implementation of your EMR integration software must be met with additional updates and security enhancements over time as well.
Challenges to a Successful EMR Integration
While most technological advancements bring ease and efficiency to existing systems, some have proved more difficult than others. EMR integration can bring enormous benefits to medical practices and help streamline their processes, but it isn’t without its challenges.
High opportunity costs
EMR integration requires a lot of available resources that many companies simply don’t have. The opportunity costs of setting up these workflows are high and an enormous headache. Sometimes, it’s nearly impossible.
You may get some platforms for no cost, but they often have hidden charges to consider. Be careful with what you choose because you might lose time and a lot of money on software that does not deliver results compared to more expensive alternatives.
Suitability
When looking for a new EMR, you want to make sure you find exactly what you need. There are so many options that it can be hard to decide which one will work best for your practice.
Healthcare providers need to perform extensive research to look for the “perfect fit”, which can be very stressful and frustrating.
Implementation
Implementing an Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system into your organization is not always easy. There are a lot of things that need to be considered upfronts, such as the type of system, features, cost, and implementation. It can be a daunting task, but it is also important to get it right.
There’s nothing more frustrating than a botched implementation, so before even considering the possibility, make sure you do your due diligence and consider all the options. As always, it is important to research your options and consult with EMR professionals before moving forward.
Connect by Intely for EMR Integration
While no new technology is a sure-fire solution, EMR integrations offer great promise in streamlining the way healthcare information is gathered and handled.
Look no further! Connect by Intely has made healthcare data integration easy.
Using standardized connections and templated workflows, Connect by Intely packages the integrations you need into repeatable assets. You no longer have to worry about writing code or developing bespoke workflows. Connect by Intely consolidates EMR and health data integrations.
With the click of a few buttons, you can create a workflow, set up data integration, and deploy it into production to unlock clinical, operational, and financial opportunities.
Interested? Visit intely.io and schedule a demo today!
