Emr Integration – "ice Cream, Anyone?"

Do you stand in front of a Baskin Robbins ice cream case trying to figure out which flavor of ice cream to choose? Are there so many flavors that it takes more time to choose your flavor then to eat it? Where am I going with this ice cream questioning, you ask, when you were hoping to hear about EMR integration? Well with all of the different Electronic Medical Records systems available on the market today – over 100 of them and counting – it is apparent that there are as many flavors of EMR systems and EMR integration points as there are flavors of Baskin Robbins ice cream. Additionally, there are as many standards to connect applications, HL7, HL7 Clinical Document Architecture, Continuity of Care Record, EHR-Lab Interoperability, and Connectivity Specification, to name a few, as there are toppings. And finally there are various different ways to serve up integration ice cream – firm, like in a cone, or flexible, like in a paper cup. So like picking an ice cream from the Baskin Robbins case, how does one know the right flavor of integration to choose when dealing with disparate healthcare systems?

the EMR system and your other applications, such as billing or prescribing, are already built and being used elsewhere, then you are a long way down the path to choosing the right integration flavor.

So go ahead and pick your integration ice cream. Just be warned that if you don’t choose carefully you may choose a flavor that you don’t like and it may end up leaving a bad taste in your mouth.

 

At UFC, we believe that the process of choosing how to integrate healthcare applications is a little like choosing your flavor of ice cream and its presentation. It is highly dependent on your mood. Do you want a softer, more flexible interface presentation that provides conversion of one product’s interface to another? Or do you wish to have a more solid, less flexible presentation? We would argue that you need one scoop of both; a softer scoop of integration that allows for interoperability of data between disparate healthcare systems and a solid scoop that allows for compatibility and security with a published interface standard such as HL7. We think that the key is for the interface to be built such that is it compatible with a standard and provides data security but still interoperable with other products that meet the same standard. In other words we need to build connectivity between systems such that the doctor or users do not need to do anything special in order for the systems to talk to one another. Less is more in this case.

Ultimately, here is where the rubber meets the road; or rather the ice cream meets the cone. As a healthcare practice, you will need to have a method of building interoperability between systems that provides you some flexibility but still meets integration standards and security. With all of the confusion out there around interoperability (good grief – the healthcare industry can’t even agree on acronym usage much less interoperability standards), we suggest that you choose an EMR system/provider that is knowledgeable in integration work and has protocols that are used consistently. Better yet, if the connections between

To learn more about the innovative, template-free EMR system that we offer that provides robust integration with other systems please visit our website at www.ufcinc.com or contact us at sales@ufcinc.com.

CEO of UFC, Inc.

Andy Eberhard – aeberhard@ufcinc.com

www.ufcinc.com

Tagged as: document system, Emr, medical documents, medical ocr, medical system, Praxis, Ufc, ufc inc