Introduction:

Patient health records are the most crucial data for the healthcare industry today. Industry leaders have already clarified how electronic health records and medical records are essential for all stakeholders in a care setting. And over the last few years, EHR and EMR integration has been rising in popularity. However, providers are pretty apprehensive about EMR integration mainly.   

Several common myths around EMR integration are still believed today. Healthcare providers prefer EHR, patient engagement systems, remote patient monitoring systems, and other digital solutions to streamline their care services. However, EMR integration is plagued by some misconceptions. We’ll tell more about these common myths and misconceptions here. But it would help if you acknowledged that EMR integration is essential today in the care continuum to improve patient outcomes. 

Moreover, EMR integration improves electronic data interchange across health institutions, and these benefit providers to predict different conditions using predictive analytics or medical informatics. Above all, healthcare providers actively offer advanced telehealth solutions and need seamless interoperability for sharing clinical data. So, EMR integration is one practice that can transform your health care management.   

How Does EMR Integration Work

Whether you’re offering patient engagement solutions, telehealth, or billing services, an electronic medical records system is helpful for all. Besides, EMR integration with any service is beneficial for providers. Moreover, the healthcare APIs play a critical role in interoperability and streamlining clinicians’ workflow. Todays’ healthcare software product development companies offer EMR integration in 3 major areas to improve the healthcare ecosystem.   

EMR Integration with Telehealth

Last few years, the healthcare industry in the U.S witnessed a significant rise in telehealth. Since the pandemic, patients and providers also prefer telehealth over in-patient visits. And telehealth means a massive amount of patient data transfer across platforms and care settings. So, integrating electronic medical records solutions with telehealth will favor clinicians’ work. This will benefit clinicians in many ways-  

  • Improved diagnosis process  
  • Decrease in hospitals readmissions   
  • Minimum diagnostic errors  
  • Improved revenue   

EMR Integration with Clinical Trial Systems

Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies utilize CTMS to manage patients involved across the care setting. However, physicians should know about their patients’ involvement in clinical trials. This ensures patient safety, and physicians would know about the trial and patient’s conditions too. So, integrating CTMS and EMR will boost clinical trials and patient outcomes. Further, it also offers-   

  • Reduce billing compliance problems  
  • Offers easy access to patient health information  
  • Eliminates errors in the trials  

EMR Integration with Clinical Laboratory Systems

Like CTMS, pathologists, physicians, and technicians use clinical laboratory systems to eliminate errors in the results data. The accuracy of these lab results has an impact on patient care outcomes. However, integrating electronic medical records software into the clinical laboratory systems makes this process more accurate and efficient. It offers these benefits-   

  • Quick access to lab results  
  • Mitigates risks in lab analysis’ pre-analytical phase   
  • Enhanced interoperability  
  • Improved diagnosis and care   

Common Myths about EMR Integration Still Believed By Healthcare Providers  

Now that you know that just like EHR integration, integrated electronic medical records benefit the different automated healthcare solutions. However, healthcare providers are still skeptical of EMR integration. Common misconceptions and myths around EMR integration that providers still believe today are nothing but a hoax.   

  • Integration is Expensive- Custom healthcare software solutions providers often highlight how EHR and EMR implementation increase caregivers’ savings. Similarly, EMR integration with other practice management solutions will also boost your savings. This integration will streamline your clinical data collection and transfer workflows, thus reducing the additional cost burden of the practice. So, EMR integration solutions assure savings and improve revenue.   
  • EMR and EHR integration are the same- Many care providers are under the impression that EHR and EMR integration is the same. Healthcare providers need a clear understanding of EHR and EMR before integrating them. EMR integration allows providers to share data across different care settings in the healthcare sector. However, EHR integration streamlines the patient information across the various departments in a hospital setting or a care episode. EMR integration improves interoperability, and EHR boosts integrated management solutions.   
  • Hindrances in Patient Engagement- Healthcare providers ensure that their patient experience is top-notch. And some are concerned that EMR integration might hinder patient engagement. But EMR integration with clinical management solutions improves patient outcomes. With the EMR extracted data, providers predict, analysis and decide for the specific care episode. So, EMR impacting patient engagement is a myth.    
  • High Risk and Privacy of Internal Data- Another myth that many care providers still believe is that EMR integration is risky for clinical data. Though EMR integration involves data transfer, the EMR software ensures security and privacy encryption. Also, the EMR software integrated with other health solutions is HIPAA compliant. So, it’s safe to integrate electronic medical records for enhanced practice.   
  • No ROI- Many health care providers assume that EMR and its integration with different software solutions don’t impact the revenue. With EMR integration, physicians and caregivers get crucial patient data to make informed clinical decisions beforehand. It reduces hospital readmissions, clarity in billings and improves the care process. Such efficiency will reflect in the provider’s ROI.   
    

Key Benefits of EMR Integration

As a health care provider, you must have a clear perspective on EMR integration. EHR systems integrated with different practice management solutions benefit the providers, but EMR integration offers varied benefits.   

  • Reduced Manual Entry and data errors- Whether you’re sending medical information to a clinical lab, radiologist, or another physician, accuracy is necessary. Patient medical records hold essential information to help physicians make diagnostic decisions. So, it’s best to adopt EMR integration and switch from manual data entry. Also, automated workflow like EMR integrated with telehealth solutions incur fewer errors than the manual process.   
  • Enhanced data analytics- With EMR integration, providers, are benefitted from improved patient outcomes. EMR integrated with data analytics solutions help clinicians with predictive analysis and better patient diagnosis. Besides, better data analytics means better diagnosis and improved outcomes.   
  • Improvements in Practice and Outcomes- Practice management solutions integrated with electronic medical records improve interoperability and care outcomes. EMR integration shares clinical data seamlessly across the care ecosystem without any error. This boosts physicians’ confidence in understanding patients’ conditions before making necessary clinical decisions. This also enhances patients’ experience with the provider.   
  • Patient Satisfaction- Healthcare providers integrating EMR with other clinical and administrative practice solutions positively affect patient satisfaction. EMR integration shares data and ensures a risk-free ecosystem between different providers. With seamless healthcare interoperability, clinicians make better decisions about patient health and diagnosis. And this leads to improving care results. Patients are also satisfied with the outcomes, thus improving their overall experience of the care episode.   

Conclusion   

Today electronic health records and electronic medical records are quite an integral part of the healthcare system. Many healthcare providers still believe some myths and misconceptions about EHR implementation or EMR software integration. We highlighted some of those myths, but you must also follow standardized methods to integrate EMR with your practice solutions as providers. Besides, you can use the help of your existing or new vendor to integrate both EMR and your practice management solutions. Moreover, it’s good to see that the vendor uses based EMR with its cloud computing solutions for improved interoperability. So, EMR integration today is much needed to boost the care practice and make better treatment decisions.   

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