Benefits of Custom EHR Integration for Healthcare Organizations

The healthcare industry is getting more costly with every passing day, right? 

The rising cost is somewhere a topic for both patients and providers. I think this statistic would give you a good idea about the cost situation. You see, in March 2024, the Medical Group Management Association, in its study, found that around 60% of medical group leaders saw a rise in their practice’s claim denial rates.

Upon careful interventions and further study of the paper, the problem was clearly hidden in plain sight. Let me explain – ever since digital systems made their way into the healthcare industry, data became isolated, and systems grew disconnected on a broader scale.

The solutions? Well, one is to make it compulsory for everyone to use only one system or choose a much simpler, independent, and reliable healthcare integration of integrated health systems.

Moreover, custom EHR integration brings benefits like reduced data duplication, automated manual workflows, avoided clinical burnout of staff members, and reduced administrative overheads can literally transform the practice completely.

In this blog, let’s discuss some of the key custom EHR integration benefits for practices like yours!

Financial Benefits: The ROI of Custom EHR Integration

Starting with the economic side, let’s oversee the financial advantage that custom EHR integration brings to your practice.

• Quantifiable Cost Reduction

On what task does the healthcare administrative staff mostly spend their time? Yes, in this digital age, they spend most of their time entering data into the system. This is what is causing interruptions in the entire care delivery process.

Though they are not to be blamed, they are the mundane tasks that cost any practice the most. However, with integrated health systems, these processes can be easily automated, and this is where numerous opportunities to reduce data entry costs can be saved. This can reduce the chances of duplication of testing, and other procedures can be observed.

Last but not least, on the technical side, it costs much less to maintain, and you also get the opportunity to streamline clinical workflows.

• Revenue Enhance Opportunities

With integration, the factor of interoperability can also be achieved, and this is one of the major EHR integration advantages. You see, by allowing systems to communicate with each other, you can improve charge capture, which directly impacts the accuracy of billing. 

This act alone streamlines the claims processing and submission processes with speed with automation. Healthcare integration ROI can save the industry around $8.3 billion annually, some studies suggest.

All these benefits, while allowing you to enhance your care delivery with accuracy and data-backed practices. This way, you can meet value-based care metrics easily and enhance the quality of care in your practice.

• Long-Term Financial Benefits

Custom EHR integration benefits your practice in the long term as well by aligning the factors of scalability to it. This way, the proportional cost of making changes in your system or completely changing your system is reduced, if not eliminated. 

Now, align this model of yours with the changing reimbursement models the way you see fit, and your system will also become adaptable to the changing needs of the system. One of the major custom EHR integration benefits is like investing in your technology for better and more profound results.

Clinical Workflow Optimization: Enhancing Provider Experience

Now that we’re done with the financial aspect let’s see the other benefits that help you make your work a little easier, more transparent, and better. So, without further ado, let’s get started:

• Streamlined Documentation Processes

If you’ve read the above part, then we discussed the reduction in manual data entry. Well, let’s elaborate and explore this aspect of custom EHR integration benefits. You see, when the data is streamlined and automated, it eliminates redundant data entries. This means that the provider doesn’t have to manually enter data into the system constantly.

Furthermore, the system also presents the data in a context-sensitive manner, which makes it easier for your staff and providers to understand. And if you are coupling that with specialized templates that are condition, workflow, or provider types, then the efficiency can be improved by multiple folds.

• Time-Saving Automation Opportunities

Custom EHR integration connects your system with disparate healthcare systems, which allows them to seamlessly exchange information and data with each other. These EHR integration advantages streamlined clinical workflows through automated data synchronization across systems. Meaning the delay due to latency can be completely eliminated.

Also, with this, you can ensure that the entire care team and everyone involved in the care delivery are on the same page and working towards the same goal. Coupling this with smart alerts and notifications can also be a great tool for delivering preventive care in a much more sophisticated way.

And while you’re at this, use the same system to intelligently order sets of data based on the clinical context. In simple words, you can divide the data sets on the basis of diseases, medication, level of care, etc.

• Provider-Centric Customizations

Apart from the exclusive benefits of integrated health systems, custom EHR integration benefits you in a unique way. You see, you can customize the workflow the way you want and align it with your practice’s workflow. This way, you can easily address the specialty needs, and in accordance with the needs, you can customize the interface to make it more interactive.

Furthermore, mobile access to clinical information can make care delivery much easier, while closing the gaps between patients and providers.

Enhanced Patient Care & Safety

Streamlined clinical workflows with integrated health systems can enhance the safety of the patient during their entire care journey. Let’s see how:

• Comprehensive Patient View Benefits

EHR integration connects your healthcare system with the EHR systems, and this gives you access to the patient’s complete medical history. This way, during care planning and delivery, you get 360-degree access to patient information, with historical data brought under one roof along with aggregated lab and diagnostic results.

• Improved Clinical Decision Support

Custom EHR integration gives you complete access to the patient’s medical history. This will help in the accurate collection of complete data. Now, this completeness and readiness of data leads to more accurate diagnosis, allowing you to make precise and timely decisions. In this way, you can prevent adverse events through data aggregation, which allows the system to assist with accurate diagnosis and care delivery.

• Patient Engagement Improvements

EHR integration also improves the patient experience while using the patient portal. You see when the data is complete and in sync with each other systems that are connected in the network, access to essential information like medication refills, appointment schedules, etc., is easily available. This improves the patient experience and empowers them to proactively participate in their care.

Furthermore, with consistent messaging and educational material, you can ensure that the patient knows the course of action that needs to be taken to improve their health outcomes.

Data Analytics & Population Health Management

Custom EHR integration benefits your practice by giving your staff and providers access to information, valuable patient information. Now, when you have this information in huge volumes, then its analysis can change many things, from improving practice to determining better healthcare activities. 

Let’s see how integrated health systems help in data analytics and better population health management initiatives:

• Enhanced Reporting Capabilities

The systems connected with your systems make your infrastructure a unified data warehouse that allows for comprehensive reporting. This makes the system analyze the data in a better way due to its completeness and connections.

Furthermore, cross-systems analytics without manual interference simply help in accurate reporting and the real-time dashboards with actionable insights improve the real-time factor in the data that is being generated.

• Population Health Advantages

When you have a huge volume of data, then finding specific health patterns in the patient population becomes much easier. An accurate analysis can be used for risk stratification and to help the patient population in a much better way. 

Furthermore, gaps in care can be easily identified, which further adds to the continuity of care and empowers proactive interventions for value-based and holistic care delivery.

Competitive Advantage & Strategic Positioning

Custom EHR integration gives you a heads-up competitive advantage over your competitors. 

You see, with custom EHR integration, you will enhance the patient experience significantly and instill data-driven care practices. This leaves you enough room to coordinate care in a much-informed manner. This way, you can set yourself apart from the competition with strategic and different market positioning.

Along with that, since you’ll be using standardized advanced technologies to streamline clinical workflows, the adoption will become faster. This also helps you incorporate newer care models easily and without much disruptions. 

This process also reduces the friction when you want to add new features or start a completely new venture on the service side. This can be a strategic placement for the long-term growth of your practice.

You see, EHR integration advantages involve a connected ecosystem, which makes your system readily available for proactive participation. Along with that, it also creates the foundation for future initiatives and amplifies your success rate.

Implementation Considerations for Maximum Benefit

However, building integrated health systems is easier said than done. That is why there are some considerations you keep in mind that can help you harness the maximum benefits of EHR integration.

• Keys to Successful Custom Integration

The development of custom EHR integration takes place in phases, and each phase has its own specific importance. That is why you should be actively involved in discovery and involve as many stakeholders as possible to address the right problems.

Along with that, discuss the governance structure for ongoing optimization and ensure that the integration stands at all times.

• Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Some common pitfalls that you must avoid are post-implementation support. You see after the project is deployed, the staff can be shortened, and this can create further problems. That’s why it is suggested that a dedicated team be created.

Also, don’t ignore training and adoption for end-users; after all, they should know how to effectively use custom software solutions. 

• Best Practices for Integration Projects

Adopt some of the best practices for EHR integration projects, like planning out a phased implementation and creating a center of excellence so that you always have a subject matter expert to address issues on priority.

Other than that, always track and make changes in the process to make continuous improvements.