Hospitals and other healthcare organizations are encountering demand of offering electronic interfaces at exceptional prices. EMR integration services are expensive and not every clinic or lab in healthcare industry can avail them easily. The hike in demand of these services is due to the operational and revenue objective. Interfacing apps process is critical to achieve both objectives. Experts in healthcare are using two primary approaches to interfacing-
1. Point-to-point interfaces – It is most effective approach for one or two static, fixed interfaces.
2. Interface engine solution – It leverages one import or export module from core apps and distributes interfaces to several apps efficiently.
EMR or electronic medical record is one of the types of applications requiring interfaces to function. Providers in a need of interfaces rely on well-organized workflow to perform their jobs effectively and deliver precise, timely output to the referring community. The best approach provides long-term impact on an organization’s physician outreach program, operational costs, workflow efficiencies, and complete client support.
What’s best for healthcare? Custom or best-practices approach?
Healthcare organizations seeking to integrate Picture Archive and Communication Systems (PACS) and EHR often struggle with the dilemma – whether they should develop custom interfaces or choose best-practices approach. The best practices method includes standards-based frameworks. With the use of standards-based connectivity, the open-web architecture and rapid development approaches are no longer considered.
Expert tips for integrating EMRs:
Best-of-breed architecture
An effective approach for integration needs an architectural design that is intended for multivendor, multisystem integration. Getting expertise of such environment not only assists professionals in avoiding costly technology project, but it also lowers the impact of radical change management throughout multiple sites.
Low impact on existing care workflow
In healthcare environment, disruption of an established care workflow acts as a barrier to system adoption and integration. For effective integration, eliminating or minimizing the disruption of workflow will be helpful. Any solution that allows data sharing should leverage a working IT infrastructure instead of imposing expensive hardware upgrades.
Considering patient experience
Many times patient experience is neglected when it’s about integration. For effective integration planning, organizations have to care about individual experience and account for complete picture throughout the program. Quick and sound decisions will help clinicians to provide quality of care and cost effective health delivery. Moreover, patients will also appreciate the prompt services. Intending cross-enterprise integration while considering patient experience will allow organizations to deliver more effective care and build confidence of care providers. You just cannot ignore customer service if you want growth in the business.
Leverage present standards compliance
With the rise in adoption rate of HL7 standards and Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine standards among modern healthcare organizations, shortest path to an effective data exchange is open for people. These standards help EHRs and EMRs to reconcile patient ID information, synchronize order data and exchange lab reports without any requirement of extra interfaces. With the help of standard-based interfacing, users can avail quick integration services and information sharing without any costly and time-consuming integration project.
Consider Web as an integration conduit
Internet acts as a public information backbone and offers communication line to exchange healthcare data. The great Web Services architecture, wide use of SaaS model for business-critical solutions, and Web data protection complete the list of all key elements of an ideal data exchange.
To facilitate communication between two healthcare apps, an ideal interface should have these inclusions –
- N export endpoint for the sending app
- A method of transporting data between the two endpoints
- A method for logging the messages flow
- An import endpoint for the retrieving app
- A method for handling the queuing messages
HL7 is most widely applied standard to initiate communication between two or multiple healthcare applications. The advantage of using HL7 is that it simplifies the interface implementation and reduces the need for custom interfaces.
You can hire IT professionals offering HL7 messaging services to avail premium EMR integration services. They will guide you through their systems and explain the benefits, so that you can make decision easily. Browse the vendors online in your local and get unique deals.
