Common Challenges in EHR Integration and How to Overcome Them

Imagine a scenario where your physician isn’t able to access patient health information during consultation and is unable to provide holistic care?

This would really upset your patient population and some might even question the credibility of your healthcare services. The chances of this happening is quite more in virtual healthcare delivery and especially with custom healthcare software systems that are not integrated with EHR systems .

EHR integration is literally the step-up for your digital healthcare practice and almost covers all the aspects of it efficiently and effectively. However, custom EHR integration with your healthcare software system is filled with challenges that make it difficult for healthcare software developers to integrate disparate healthcare systems with custom healthcare software systems.

This is where it becomes necessary for you to overcome healthcare IT integration challenges to ensure complete care delivery and enjoy the lucrative benefits of a custom healthcare system with EHR integration.

In this blog, let’s discuss some of the most common EHR integration challenges and solutions that one is likely to face during EHR integration. Also, let’s see how to overcome healthcare IT integration hurdles and mitigate EHR integration risks. So, without further ado, let’s get started!

Data Interoperability Issues

The first challenge that arises in custom EHR integration with your healthcare system is the interoperability challenge. Furthermore, navigating EHR integration complexity majorly depends on interoperability. So, here are some interoperability challenges and how you can address medical data integration issues:

• Data Standards and Formats

Different EHR systems and even healthcare systems use different data standards to collect and store their data. So, when you want to integrate your system with an EHR system using different data standards and formats, achieving interoperability becomes difficult.

However, one of the best ways to overcome this challenge is to map the data properly and normalize the data standards and formats. This way you create a middle ground for both the systems to exchange data and to make the system interoperable. Also this is a one of the widely popular strategies for successful healthcare data exchange from one system to another.

One of the best practices for seamless EHR interoperability is to use standardized interoperability formats such as HL7 and FHIR.

• Data Security and Privacy Concerns

During the transition phase of data from one system to another, there is a high chance of data breaches and unauthorized access to sensitive patient information. That is why data security and privacy concerns while achieving interoperability is a major concern for custom EHR integration.

However, to minimize the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access, robust security measures such as role-based access control, APIs, and compliance with regulatory standards such as HIPAA, GDPR, etc., should be implemented.

Complex Integration Process

Apart from the interoperability challenges, the technical challenges that might arise during integration is also a major concern. For instance, the technical complexity of your custom healthcare system might provide some major difficulties in the integration process. This might arise as your system and the EHR systems use different technology stacks.

This is where the role of your healthcare software development company is crucial. Choose the right development partner who is specialized in integration tools and knows how to establish seamless connection with two desperate healthcare systems without compromising system security and healthcare regulatory compliances.

Another thing to consider during this is the vendor lock-in period. Healthcare IT vendors usually ask for a lock-in period so that they can only use their services for a particular period of time. Their expertise might come in handy but can give you less flexibility during integration.

Having a vendor-neutral approach for at least custom EHR integration can help you seamlessly integrate your custom healthcare software with other EHR systems.

Cost and Time Constraints

When it comes to custom EHR integration or any integration in general, it requires significant upfront cost and much larger time. So, before making a decision with custom EHR integration, discuss the integration strategies with your vendor and allocate budget accordingly. This way you can control the cost that is being associated with integration.

Along with the high cost associated with custom EHR integration, the implementation time is also large. Furthermore, there can be delays that might further elongate the process and create disruptions in the workflow.

This is where project management tools can come in...Click here to read more