At the point of care, EHR integration brings data and insights from digital health technologies forward. It is used to deliver relevant information, warnings to hazards and opportunities, and financial and operational advice.
EHRs, or electronic health records, are widely utilized nowadays, with nearly all hospitals using a certified EHR system. However, for many people, proper EHR integration is still a problem.
For example, in 2015, three out of five hospitals were unable to successfully integrate their data into EHRs.
As a result, efficiency difficulties arise, raising operational expenses unnecessarily.
Why is EHR integration so crucial?
EHR integration ensures that a hospital and a patient get the most out of the available resources in the country’s current data-driven healthcare model. There are a variety of EHR systems and software on the market today.
Having a shared pool of data is tremendously important in delivering the best healthcare treatments. Especially with new rules encouraging the adoption of EHRs as well as the development of applications, wearable technologies, and the Internet of Things.
Unlike traditional commerce and retail, where businesses may use three or four different types of systems. Healthcare enterprises may employ up to 500 different systems and software.
It becomes more difficult to communicate across multiple systems, which diminishes the overall effectiveness of the system. All entities must attempt to connect all of these dots to synchronize the information for the benefit of everyone.
Why is EHR integration an issue?
Even when healthcare providers understand the difficulties of putting two systems together to operate together. Getting them to communicate remains a difficulty. Here are some of the challenges associated with EHR integration: –
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Compatibility:
There are thousands of EHR systems on the market, each with its schema, system architecture, service model, and set of capabilities. This makes data extraction and exchange from EHR at a distance difficult.
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Methodology:
There are two different EHR systems, each with two different documentation methods that vary from one provider to the next. This makes it difficult for the other party to comprehend the data correctly.
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Data conversion:
Data obtained during EHR integration can be in a variety of forms. To save all of the vital information consistently, it is necessary to record, format, and standardize the data.
However, it is crucial to guarantee that the data’s essential significance is preserved during this procedure.
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Data transfer:
Transferring data in packets from or to EHRs is a difficult task that necessitates planning to maintain data security. When it comes to data migration, there are four primary issues to consider:
- Network constraints
- Hardware constraints
- Data unavailability during relocation
- Data loss risk during migration
- EHR integration solutions
In recent years, many players have attempted to smooth out the procedure. Several EHR developers have created open APIs for operators to make data integration with their EHRs as simple as possible.
The good news is that healthcare providers’ willingness to exchange data with one another is admirable. The available data pools and analytical tools provide the necessary actionable intelligence for EHRs to reach their full potential.
Some suppliers employ a big data-based data pool to help healthcare providers streamline the extraction, transformation, and loading process (ETL). When it comes to moving to value-based care, having an integrated data management platform is critical.
A strategy:
Healthcare businesses are offered a variety of data management systems, each with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Because of the rapid pace of change in the healthcare industry, being dynamic and nimble is essential for success.
Step-by-step integration is required to address the issues created by the lack of EHR Data Integration, such as: –
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Data Collecting:
The data pool should include pre-built interfaces to a variety of other EHR systems. Regardless of whether the other EHR has an API or a standard architecture, the data pool must be able to extract data from all of them.
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Data Cleaning:
The data pool must recognize duplicate records, incomplete entries, incorrectly formatted data, and data that has become outdated. It needs to figure out if the data was tainted by incorrect record field processing.
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Data compatibility:
All imported data must be standardized using advanced technologies to bring all relevant information in the patient care process into a single format.
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Data Quality:
Agile algorithms must be able to detect faulty values, missing data, and non-standard value formats. As well as perform a full audit of the data imported to guarantee that no transformations are broken. It should be able to take remedial action to improve the quality of the data.
Keys to successful EHR integration: –
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Standards:
The healthcare industry must set standards, emphasize functional integration, and generate use cases to achieve EHR integration. Healthcare IT executives have pushed for the adoption of standardized interchange standards.
Only to make the transmission of electronic health data easier. HIPAA codified this concept and expanded on it in the HIPAA transaction standards. Recent standards development efforts are seeking to push the boundaries of interoperability.
Their focus includes greater real-time, or near real-time. Health information and analytics exchange, as well as delivering relevant health information for physicians at the point of care.
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Achieve Functional Integration:
In addition to standards that promote the sharing of electronic health information, health systems must have the will to address the technical and administrative hurdles to achieve genuine integration.
Even if SMART on FHIR is widely adopted, health systems and manufacturers must enable and configure their systems for integration; standards alone will not be enough.
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Develop Use Cases:
There are numerous instances of information that might be made available in the EHR as a result of integration and would inspire clinical action:
- A priority list of people who might have pneumonia or sepsis.
- A ranking of patients who would benefit from referral to a social worker based on healthcare and other data.
- Information about a patient’s medication adherence and drugs that have previously shown effective in assisting the patient in maintaining medication compliance.
Clinicians will be more inclined to advocate for the continued and expanded use of data integration tools. If they find themselves questioning how they prioritized ICU cases or managed patient discharge before having this integrated information.
Future of EHR Integration:
The future of EHR integration in healthcare organizations is useful because it helps to collect the medical record of every single patient safely. In the upcoming time, every healthcare organization requires a particular platform to secure patient data.
That’s why software companies increase their productivity in EHR integration and some other software. They also keep in mind the security of patient data for a long period.
Conclusion:
intely gives you the best service in EHR integration. Our service allows you to communicate health-related data without hassle. We always provide advanced software to healthcare organizations.
