Integrated EHR pointing in the right direction

An integrated EHR or Electronic Health Record is an EHR which has the ability to interoperate across various applications and support information sharing/exchange with third parties. An EHR automates all the processes from patient treatment to billing, and bring increased efficiency to a provider’s office. Today’s EHRs are very advanced and have feature enriched capabilities. Many practices have been using basic EHR and billing systems since a long time and now need to upgrade or switch their EHR to qualify for Medicare and Medicaid meaningful use incentives. Migration to a new EHR is quite a challenging task because your old EHR holds all your data. The new EHR should have integration ability to work with your existing systems to enhance efficiency and workflow.

The top benefit of an integrated EHR is its ability to pull data from third parties such as labs, pharmacies, and insurance companies. A provider or practice using an integrated EHR does not need to fax or print any information. Integrated EHR users can send information to third parties from their systems and can also receive information such as lab results and insurance information right on their desktops. With an integrated EHR system, providers and practices can automate all their processes and enhance their workflow. The more resourceful processes are, the greater a practice’s chances are for qualifying for Medicare and Medicaid meaningful use incentives.

Fig. Integrated EHR perfection at its finest