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Integrate EHR with Telemedicine to Receive Data Stored on EHR Directly on Telehealth Solution

Quick Summary: The adoption of telehealth in the healthcare industry is expanding.

As per the reports “telehealth utilization has stabilized at levels 38X higher than before the pandemic”.

However, the major challenge still remains the same as the challenge is associated with data. Because providers using telemedicine platforms cannot be able to offer quality care without direct and easy access to clinical data.

In other words, there is now no sense in building a telemedicine platform that cannot be able to fetch and share data with EHR.

Thus, sensing the urgency, in this blog, we will discuss everything you need to know about integrating EHR with telehealth.

Why is telehealth EHR integration mandatory for the healthcare industry?

In virtual care, the most essential thing for healthcare professionals is to provide quality care and a positive experience to the patient.

For that, seamless access to clinical data of patients is required which is generally stored on EHR and EMR.

Things become tedious and complicated for providers when they care using any 3rd party digital solutions such as telehealth solutions to provide care as they now have to keep the window of EHR open while providing care through telemedicine.

To avoid such mess, integrating EHR with the telehealth platform is the most appropriate method.

But without integration, there are numerous challenges health organizations can face such as,

  • Have to do separate data entry:

Healthcare professionals have to type the patient health records manually in both EHR and telehealth platforms if they have not integrated EHR with telemedicine.

  • There is a chance of medical errors:

Because of utilizing telemedicine and EHR separately to provide care, there is a chance of error such as – wrong prescription and information.

Such types of errors can misguide the healthcare professional for the patient’s treatment which can end up in a life-threatening situation.

  • Affects patient experience:

During virtual care, the healthcare professional needs on-time patient health records to deliver quality care.

However, without EHR integration, checking patient health records takes time and effort, which can lead to a bad patient experience during virtual care.

How telehealth EHR integration helps both the care provider and patient?

Using telemedicine EHR integration, the caregivers can easily focus on quality care, efficient workflows, and a positive patient experience.

Apart from that, numerous benefits define “the integration of EHR with telemedicine can assist healthcare professionals to deliver quality virtual care”.

  • Automatic and error-free data entry:

With the help of telemedicine EHR integration, care providers don’t have to worry about duplicate data entry and medical errors during transferring the data.

In other words, it gives accurate, and on-time patient health data to assist care providers to deliver the ideal treatment for the patient’s health concerns.

  • Real-time access to the patient information:

When it comes to virtual care, accurate and secure patient information is the crucial aspect.

By using the telemedicine EHR integration, care providers can access crucial patient health data hassle-free from their telemedicine platform itself.

Also, it allows care providers to update the patient information in the EHR software with accurate information and documentation directly through the telemedicine platform.

  • Improves productivity:

Accurate patient data, real-time access, valid patient information, error-free data sharing, and complete documentation assist healthcare professionals to save their clinical time which they generally waste in finding the right data instantly.

  • Data and evidence-based prescription:

As we discussed, without EHR integration to telehealth, providers either have to ask the clinical history of patients to patients themselves or run EHR simultaneously.

However, such a practice never empowers providers to write clinical data and evidence-based prescriptions which result in enhanced patient outcomes.

  • Positive patient experience:

To offer the ultimate patient experience – ideal communication, seamless virtual care, and precise medical prescription are the major aspects of virtual care.

By using EHR integration with telehealth, healthcare professionals can effortlessly provide a personalized and positive patient experience as they now have data in hand!

What are the various types of EHR integration?

Integrating EHR with telemedicine is nothing but building the bridge between these two tools so that they can fetch and share (data exchange) clinical data of patients as per need.

There are mainly two types of methods for data exchange in between EHR and telemedicine which are, bi-directional and unidirectional.

Let’s start with the bi-directional.

Bi-directional data exchange:

In one sentence – the health information is transferable from both ends.

Bi-directional enables the error-free transfer of patient health data from EHR to telemedicine app.

It also allows the care provider to transfer the required data such as patient history, from the telemedicine app to EHR software with accurate measures.

In addition to this, bi-directional data exchange is necessary when the data needs to be transferred from both EHR and telemedicine apps.

There are several benefits of using bi-directional information exchange, –

  • Fewer efforts are needed to transfer data from telehealth to EHR
  • No need to track and analyze the data from both EHR and telemedicine
  • Exchange or share the data in a broader network with zero error

Unidirectional data exchange:

Unidirectional data exchange means – the patient data can be transferable from only one direction – from EHR to telemedicine.

It is the ideal option when there is no need to transfer the patient information from the telemedicine app to EHR.

So, which data exchange is most suitable?

Well, it all depends on the requirements of the healthcare organization.

Whether you need bi-directional or unidirectional data exchange, integrating EHR with a telemedicine app will surely benefit you.

Which is the most common challenge that arises during EHR integration?

While integrating EHR with telehealth, there is a high possibility that errors can occur.

To avoid that – the ideal planning, most suitable process, specific healthcare IT knowledge, and optimal execution is required.

We have mastered the most general issue that many healthcare IT developers overlook.

Interoperability:

In simple words – interoperability is nothing but the ability of two separate systems to share accurate and secure information with each other.

During the integration process, many healthcare IT developers fail to keep the interoperability standards in mind.

As a result, the error appears that can’t let the telemedicine app fetch the data from the EHR in an accurate and effective manner.

To achieve healthcare interoperability, the integration must be executed while addressing all HL7 and FHIR standards.

We, as a healthcare IT company, have a team of developers with specific healthcare IT knowledge, who have mastered healthcare interoperability.

We offer top EHR vendors integration for telehealth apps

In Canada and USA, there is more than one EHR system available and selecting an ideal EHR vendor is a challenging task.

But don’t worry, we’ll assist you in choosing the most suitable EHR vendor by first knowing your needs.

The following are some of the very popular EHRs we have integrated several times with telemedicine platforms.

1. PointClickCare

2. MED e-care

3. Meditech

4. Epic

5. Cerner

6. Allscripts

7. Telus

8. McKesson

9. CareCloud

10. NextGen

11. eClinicalWorks

12. GE Centricity

13. Athenahealth

You want EHR/EMR integration – we have the ultimate expertise

We are an Ontario-based healthcare IT company.

With healthcare-specific knowledge, we have been dominating the healthcare IT industry for over 7+ years.

We said “dominating” because of our proven mastership in EHR/EMR integration and optimum knowledge in interoperability and compliance audit.

When it comes to experts, we have a dedicated team of healthcare professionals, UI/UX designers, web and app developers, compliance specialists, business analysts, and QA engineers.

With our experience, expertise, and expertise – we help healthcare start-ups, clinics, hospitals, healthcare businesses, and individual healthcare professionals.

“Work with us and dominate your competitors!”