This article’s title makes it seem like a fairytale, and to many hospital-based wound centers, this news will feel like a fairytale too.
IntellicureEHR 7 is built to be interoperable, which means it will soon be available as an app inside your hospital’s EHR. We announced in January that we were making a wound care EHR app for hospital EHRs. Well, it’s finally happening! So how does that impact your hospital-based wound center?
What is Interoperability?
Interoperability is the ability of different information systems to access, exchange, integrate and cooperatively use data in a coordinated manner across boundaries in a timely and seamless manner. Typically in the medical industry, interoperability is in reference to electronic health records (EHRs) systems exchanging data with other software.
Interoperability is on the cutting edge of healthcare technology. As Medicare began asking, and later requiring, hospitals and medical offices to use EHRs, it quickly realized that the EHR market was full of thousands of varying EHR vendors, none of which were willing to exchange data with one another. EHRs faced a business dilemma: if my software and your software exchange data freely, what stops my clients from switching to your software?
What will end that dilemma? The medical community’s demands on the marketplace would greatly benefit from the exchanging of healthcare data. If EHRs had always freely exchanged data, health epidemics and pandemics could be identified, and even stopped, before they happened. Flu outbreaks could be thwarted. And best of all, physicians could rely on real-world data about effective treatments rather than controlled clinical trials.
CMS has progressed its demands on EHRs to prove their interoperability, but few have complied due to the small financial benefit. Two of the most popular hospital EHRs, Cerner and Epic, proudly tout their interoperable functionality.
Intellicure has always been patient-centered and physician-driven. We strive to do what’s right for the medical community, not necessarily what’s profitable. With that drive, we have been working for several years toward rebuilding our wound care EHR to be interoperable, allowing hospital-based Intellicure users to freely exchange data with their hospital’s EHR so that the patient’s continuity of care between inpatient and outpatient visits is seamless.
Interoperability vs. Interfacing: What’s the Difference?
An interface transmits specific data from one EHR to another. Intellicure was among the first EHRs to successfully interface with every major EHR in hospitals. The types of interfaces vary. For example, Intellicure offers an ADT interface (Admit, Discharge, Transfer); a DFT interface (Detailed Financial Transaction); an MDM interface (Medical Document Management); and a lab interface that sends and receives lab orders and results between labs and EHRs.
The difference between interoperability and interfacing is that interfacing is simply two separate systems communicating with each other, while interoperability is one system combined with another. The data transfer is seamless and constant in an interoperable system.
What is IntellicureEHR 7?
Our latest version of IntellicureEHR will be interoperable with any other EHR built on HL7 FHIR standards and SMART technology. Epic and Cerner, for example, are both using FHIR. We are building IntellicureEHR 7 such that it can be deployed as an app inside of any such EHR, including Cerner and Epic.
Many hospital-based wound centers around the country are forced to use their hospital’s EHR for documenting wound care. But upon doing so, wound centers quickly learn that they need a wound care-specific solution for their EHR. They often turn to Intellicure for their wound care EHR. Unfortunately, some hospitals do not have the resources to dedicate to multiple EHRs, leaving their wound centers stuck with a charting system that does not optimally serve their needs.
Intellicure has changed that by transforming its latest EHR version into an interoperable app usable inside most hospital EHRs.
How Will Intellicure’s Wound Care App Benefit My Wound Center?
First and foremost, every hospital that cannot support a separate EHR for its outpatient wound center now can! Intellicure’s wound care app operates as an EHR inside your EHR, writing your complete wound care record instantaneously into your hospital system’s EHR.
Workflow Efficiencies: We’re projecting that our interoperable wound care app will save outpatient wound care centers 10-16 staff labor hours per day. The app will eliminate the constant double data entry from EHR to EHR, eliminating the need to capture demographic information twice, and improve charting speeds. Additionally, charting within IntellicureEHR lends to easier DME orders with justifying documentation automatically generated for you.
Financial Savings: The obvious cut to staff labor hours is a tremendous cost-savings alone. Additionally, Intellicure’s interoperable wound care app will reduce charting errors that lead to lost reimbursements from inaccurate coding.
Audit Risks: You already know how Intellicure guarantees its charts will always pass an audit without a fine for incomplete documentation. Now imagine that power within your hospital’s EHR, which makes no such guarantee.
Intellicure is very excited to break the mold with its new interoperable wound care EHR app, especially because we know it will lead to improved patient outcomes, streamlined continuity of care, and better healing rates.