Why EHR Integration Is Crucial for Digital Health Innovation

EHR integration consolidates your data in one place. From legacy systems to clinical data shared by other providers, EHR integration helps you get a complete picture of your patients’ health. Digital health tools are only as good as the data they assess. Machine learning and predictive analytics tools hold promise for improving diagnosis and treatment. But such tools require complete, accurate patient records. You can move your practice toward a digital health future by integrating all of your clinical data into your EHR.

Here is why EHR integration is crucial for digital health innovation.

EHR Integration Creates a More Complete Patient Record

Many practices have patient data scattered across multiple systems. EHR integration through data conversions brings all your clinical data from across your legacy systems and disjointed systems into your EHR system. This ensures your providers have access to all relevant data when making diagnoses, ordering tests, and prescribing medication. It also helps improve the accuracy of digital health tools like predictive analytics and clinical decision support tools.

Integration does not just include the data stored in your systems. You can also consolidate data shared by other providers. For example, the 21st Century Cures Act requires hospitals to share admission, discharge, and transfer (ADT) records with patients’ care teams. This includes primary care physicians. Your practice can integrate this data into your EHR to create more complete medical records.

Combining data across providers and health systems, including hospitals, helps improve digital health tools like predictive analytics. With predictive analytics, your EHR can identify patients at risk for hospitalization and help you intervene before their condition worsens. The more data your EHR contains, the better targeted such predictions will be. Comprehensive patient records also support better machine learning for better computer-facilitated diagnosis and treatment.

EHR Integration Helps Fulfill the Promise of Interoperability

Digital health innovation requires vast amounts of data. Tools to support accurate diagnoses, predict adverse events, and identify the best treatment plan must be trained and tested on large data sets. EHRs are the primary source for this data. But isolated EHR systems do not create a complete record of each patient's health and medical history. To drive forward innovation in digital health, practices must also drive forward interoperability.

EHR integration helps your practice take in and use data from other providers. This helps your practice make more accurate diagnoses and improves care coordination. Clinical decision support tools also thrive on more complete information. When you share EHR data among providers, digital health tools embedded in your EHR can provide more accurate diagnoses and treatment plans. They can also more accurately flag potential errors like allergies and medication interactions.

Digital health tools built on an integrated EHR system and interoperability also benefit patients. For example, the NextGen Patient Portal allows patients easy access to their medical records. EHR integration can help your practice ensure these patient-facing tools are complete, accurate, and current. Research has shown that patient portals can increase patient engagement and satisfaction. By sharing a complete medical record with your patients, you can help them improve their quality of life and health outcomes.

EHR Integration Provides the Raw Material for Innovation in Digital Health

Innovators need access to clinical data to create new digital health tools. EHR systems are the building blocks for the digital health future. With EHR integration, your practice can generate a more complete record of patients’ health and medical history. Armed with this data, innovators can create tools for better diagnosis, treatment, and risk mitigation.

The future of digital health is better health outcomes at lower costs. To achieve this vision, clinical data must be complete and reliable from the ground up. Through EHR integration, you can reduce data duplication and errors across your systems. You can also help ensure that your patients’ data is updated accurately during visits. If your practice still uses multiple legacy systems, you create opportunities for errors. By integrating your data into your EHR, you can identify, reconcile, and correct mismatches and prevent data from becoming outdated. Then your practice can take full advantage of digital health tools to support better patient care.

Whether your practice plans to develop innovative digital health tools or take advantage of them, EHR integration is a crucial first step. Innovators can not develop and test the next generation of artificial intelligence or remote monitoring tools without reliable clinical data. Incomplete records, data entry errors, and mismatches across systems hinder progress toward better tools to support providers and patients. The quality of output data can only ever be as good as how it is input. With EHR integration, you can address these data issues and prepare your practice to take part in digital health innovation.

EHR Integration Lets Your Practice Take Advantage of New Digital Health Tools

Remote patient monitoring and wearable trackers hold promise for helping patients manage their health between visits. But they generate a large volume of data. To take advantage of these tools, your EHR must be able to store and analyze their data seamlessly. EHR integration can help you prepare your system to work with remote patient-monitoring tools through the usage of APIs. With real-time data from these trackers, you can help patients identify problems before they become serious. You can also engage patients in their care and help them improve their health outcomes.

How TempDev Can Help with EHR Integration

TempDev can help you plan and execute your next EHR integration project. TempDev’s developers are experts in NextGen and can support any data conversion project. Whether you’re looking to combine data from legacy systems or prepare for interoperability, TempDev can get your NextGen system ready to support your needs.

Call us at 888.TEMP.DEV or contact us here to get started on your EHR integration project.