Optimizing Healthcare with EHR Integration Services
In the digital age of healthcare, electronic health records (EHRs) have revolutionized how patient data is managed and accessed. Yet the true power of EHRs can only be unlocked when they can be seamlessly integrated with the external applications that improve patient care and the accurate coding and documentation for appropriate reimbursement.
Without robust integration, healthcare professionals are forced to navigate fragmented solution silos that limit insights at the point of care—insights that have the potential to improve patient care. Optimizing healthcare with EHR hinges on achieving the seamless fusion of EHRs with third-party solutions to surface relevant data and recommendations directly within established clinical routines. Yet, most EHR integration services and solutions still fall short of delivering optimal integrations.
The Importance of Optimizing Healthcare with EHR Integration Services
Although the adoption of EHRs has been widely encouraged and incentivized by the government since 2009, 94% of clinicians responding to a study reported that the absence of user-friendly insights negatively affects patient care.
The current tools used to access and update EHRs are so cumbersome that they cause critical delays in care and contribute to clinician burnout. Optimizing healthcare with effective workflows through EHR integration can improve outcomes for patients in several ways.
Providing Timely and Effective Treatment Plans
The often-quoted phrase “time is money” is commonly used across multiple industries. Yet, for medical professionals, lost time has a far more important implication. Early treatment is a vital component of care for most health conditions, and insights from external third-party solutions hold valuable recommendations to improve and accelerate accurate diagnosis and treatment.
Related: Poor EHR Integration Negatively Impacts Patient Care, Survey Finds
According to the above study, insights that are difficult to access lead to big problems. 53% of clinicians report that patients start treatment too late, 52% report that patients spend extra time in the hospital, and 47% report patients receive the wrong treatment plan.
Nearly two-thirds of physicians who participated in the same survey reported changing an initial diagnosis or altering a treatment plan for a patient based on insights from solutions outside of their EHR platforms, but almost half frequently overlook third-party solutions.
As a result, valuable information slips through the cracks. The ability to seamlessly fuse EHRs with third-party solutions gives healthcare professionals the potential to gain immediate access to information necessary for accurate diagnoses and timely treatment plans.
Keeping Records Up to Date
The goal of EHR integration is to enable external third-party solutions to be effectively accessed for streamlined workflows that don’t stress clinicians. Without access to solutions that improve coding methods for accurate updates, clinicians are more likely to make coding errors or leave gaps in the EHR. With a lack of accurate and complete records, physicians run the risk of prescribing medications with adverse interactions or reaching inaccurate treatment conclusions.
True workflow interoperability allows health professionals to easily access third-party solutions within the EHR workflow, act on recommendations and have their decisions automatically written to the EHR with the click of a button. As a result, patient care is improved as well as timely, appropriate reimbursement.
Providing Interactive Care
Patients who receive empathetic and interactive care are more likely to feel reassured and confident in their physician’s capabilities. When doctors are forced to spend half their time staring at a computer or tablet, they risk compromising the physician-patient relationship.
This is a problem for both doctors and patients. Physicians dislike spending more time with computers than with patients, and patients who fail to connect with their doctor have lower confidence in their diagnoses and health care plans.
Effective EHR integration enables physicians to reduce time spent accessing and acting on best-in-class data-driven recommendations and direct their focus back to patients. When relevant information and valuable insights are immediately accessible, and patient care has improved, the value of EHRs can improve and cumbersome tasks related to best-in-class recommendations are eliminated.
Addressing the Growing Healthcare Professional Shortage
It’s estimated that the US could be faced with a shortage of nearly 200,000 nurses and 124,000 physicians by the 2030s. A shortage of healthcare professionals means that patients have to wait longer and travel further for care. Limits of accessible care lead to further health declines and lower overall quality of care. Demanding workloads lead to increased burnout, further contributing to the shortage.
Unfortunately, physician burnout is exacerbated by time spent finding, accessing and using best-in-class third-party solutions with recommendations that improve patient care and appropriate reimbursement. But workflow interoperability that fuses EHR with third-party solutions makes recommendations easy to find and improves clinical decisions. Increased convenience can address a major issue contributing to physician burnout, while also improving patient care.
Giving Health Care Providers the Tools they Need to Improve Patient Care
Identifying gaps in achieving effective patient care through interoperability can give physicians a real-time understanding of a patient’s health journey. Seamless integration with third-party systems makes information and insights easily accessible and actionable. However, most of the current solutions have critical shortfalls.
Navigating Overwhelming Dropdown Menus
A solution that requires clinicians to use a drop-down menu suffers from critical inconveniences. Physicians forced to proactively find a vendor button in the menu in a compressed time frame are likely to abandon the search to focus on the patient.
Effective workflow interoperability takes integration to the next level by making third-party analytics and recommendations accessible directly within the EHR workflow. With the right EHR integration services, users are automatically notified about relevant content and can immediately see vital data to make and apply informed decisions— without leaving the EHR and searching, or logging into third-party solutions.
Access and Accuracy
Immediate access to relevant recommendations and information is only one part of the solution. Accurate coding and documentation is critical for appropriate reimbursement is also critical. With thousands of codes that relate to countless medical conditions, the process requires a substantial time commitment.
Related: Beyond Data Sharing: The Power of Workflow Interoperability
Busy healthcare professionals can better use their time interacting with the next patient (and often do). Complex coding and documentation requirements can be a barrier to using efficiently treating patients and receiving appropriate reimbursement.
Effective workflow integration can eliminate additional manual data entry, automating the inclusion of decisions made by the care team in their workflow. Decisions made within the user interface of a third-party solution can automatically be written back into the EHR, eliminating time-consuming manual data entry or copying and pasting.
True EHR Integration Services to Optimize Healthcare for Patients
The ultimate goal of EHRs can only be reached when interoperability in healthcare goes beyond system interaction to include more effective EHR integration for seamless workflows to inform and drive better decisions. Integrating third-party solutions directly into clinician workflows makes critical data-driven recommendations accessible and actionable with one or even zero additional clicks.
The right EHR decision workflow integration can change how hospitals and clinicians operate by making external, third-party analytics and recommendations accessible directly within the EHR workflow. Without logging into third-party solutions, users can be automatically notified of relevant content and take action.
Ideally, the user experience can be configured, including a user interface with different form factors, such as a badge or sidebar. To be most effective, decisions made within the user interface of a third-party solution must be able to be written back into the EHR, automatically updating records to reflect new decisions made by the care team.
With Insiteflow, healthcare professionals can use EHRs as intended, easily accessing critical, current data-driven recommendations to determine the next best action for each patient. Insiteflow’s level of workflow interoperability supports informed clinical decision-making for timely and accurate treatment plans to improve the quality of care. Request a demo to learn how the right interoperability can maximize provider effectiveness and productivity in your healthcare facility.