A Step-by-step Process to Integrate Third-Party EHR Systems with Your Healthcare Solution.docx

1. A Step-by-step Process to Integrate Third-Party EHR Systems with Your Healthcare Solution EHR or Electronic Healthcare Record is a digitized version of a patient’s health data and information. The process of EHR application includes extracting, managing, storing, and retrieving medical information such as history, diagnosis, allergies, lab tests, history of immunization, test reports, treatment, and so on. These also include advanced billing documentation, prescription information, and radiology images. Nowadays, EHR systems are improved and used in various aspects of healthcare. From interoperable healthcare systems to real-time data collection, it is proving to be a boon for both patients and providers. The workflow is improved using the EHR system, and the entire healthcare sector can make improved decisions. This results in enhanced medical treatments and improved health outcomes. Why integrate EHR? EHR integration is vital as it is the next step in digitizing healthcare for the greater good. Taking advantage of a readily accessible wide range of information, patients and healthcare providers can save money, effort, and time. The health information is accurate and can be accessed on different devices, making it easy to access, monitor patients, check medical history records, and more. On the business side, EHR brings a lot to the table. The integration helps companies serve individual customers while delivering advanced experiences. Aiding in offering improved health outcomes, the standard of treatments and diagnosis has also been improved with EHR and EMR medical record systems. It further aids in simplifying business needs, utilizing patient data exchange, and improving revenues cycle management. If you are looking forward to integrating third-party EMR/EHR systems in your healthcare solution, you need to follow the procedure step by step. Often decoded as a simple process, the integration is not easy. But if you think wisely, create a strategy and proceed one stage at a time, you can get the best of the technology. Let’s start with the first step. Step 1: Start by creating an implementation strategy Every journey needs a roadmap. Since implementing a digital solution is a lengthy process, you need to ensure that you don’t take the wrong turn. Creating a strategy can be a preferred first phase. Start by simplifying the tasks and processes you will need to execute with the team, including practice managers, staff, admin employees, physicians, and patients. After this, make a list of the goals you need to accomplish, which will help you drive the implementation in the right direction. Some of the objectives that need to be addressed will include: ● Outline the budget and total cost of implementation ● Hiring and assembling a team from your associates and in house staff ● Tentative deadlines for patient and practice data migration ● Scheduling the implementation ● Creating a training program and using it after implementation ● Testing EMR systems in every mode possible, including live and demo modes ● Define future strategies and goals with EHR software system

2. Step 2: Create an implementation team Implementation is related to core digital work, including coding and even more complicated technology use. Hence, the next step is to create, manage and organize a group of teams called your implementation team. Some of the critical roles you need to look for to make a good team include project manager, testing engineer, system coding engineer, application developers, analysts, counseling advocate, nurse advocate, early users of EHR, and billing executive. You can always add in or reduce the staff positions as per your needs and current status, the finances, and the time you have for the implementation. You can also think of hiring a third-party EHR implementation specialist who would do the job for you. You can either choose to let him work with your selected team or work as an individual. Step 3: Strategizing finances and defining costs After creating a zealous team, you need to start working on the implementation process. And to do this, you need finances. The ideal approach? Better to strategize your financial needs at this point. You will need to project your implementation cost and work according to that. Always keep a buffer amount so that you are never short of revenue in the long run. You need to consider certain aspects of the project for defining costs. Here are some of them: ● Temporary staff allowance ● Vendor fees for training ● Third-party software maintenance fees ● Hardware costs ● Network and server costs ● Electricity costs ● Backups costs ● Storage devises costs ● Loss of company’s productivity ● Cost of consultancy Note that these expenses exclude the upfront cost of buying a third-party EHR system software. Hence, plan, and you will be in control of your money. Step 4: Integrating patient data into the system This is where the real thing starts. You need to keep your head in the game here. The patient data migration should be aligned with a well-formatted Electronic Health Record database. The main components of data migration are: ● Putting all information from papers to electronic medical records ● Database setup for best EHR ● Verification of data through EMR system ● Data deletion and centralization ● New data input testing ● Transferring data across systems ● Distributing data to all systems in the organization ● Accessibility and user interface testing Step 5: Developing training programs for EHR

3. As a final step, it is relevant to create a training program as the last seal on the bundle of productivity EHR will bring to you. You can appoint users to test the programs, and you may also need clear communication channels and ensure relevance through role-based training programs. Feedback loops are also a thing not to miss while creating training programs. Future strategies and goals Congratulations on creating a perfect strategy to implement third-party Medical EMR systems with your healthcare solutions. Don’t forget that the journey has just begun as a concluding step, and you should be ready with your prospects. Keep accessing factors such as efficiency, profitability, improvement in care quality, and data input quality to check whether EHR is working well or not. You can easily monitor these by surveys and analysis regularly. With these silver bullets, we can foresee a successful healthcare system with immaculate EHR integration, helping patients with better care and companies with digitized healthcare facilities.