The essential first chapter in a new EHR story

Unlike new smartphones which typically put more power and a better experience in the palm of your hands, upgraded EHR systems offer little to get excited about. As if the lack of a significant new feature wasn’t enough of a disincentive, there’s the formidable task of data migration that further stifles any thought of switching.  

Even in its brief history, user confidence in EHR systems is at an all-time low.

The idea of it

It’s a simple concept at its core—that of EHRs: Provide a central and secure repository for patient records and make those records secure but easily accessible and shareable. With that, patients and providers can make more informed care decisions. Care itself can be provided with fewer errors and without delay due to incomplete records. 

The execution isn’t as simple as the concept.  

For context

Record-keeping of patient information is nothing new. Evidence of that practice goes back hundreds of years, perhaps as long as the practice of medicine. Of course, medical records were largely kept on paper (yet unstandardized) until the first electronic methods of record-keeping began showing up in the 1970s. Electronic medical records (or EMRs as they were known then), were not widely embraced, however. The high cost of the technology was a barrier to entry for most practices and hospitals. 

It wasn’t until 2009 (more recently than you’d like to think) that adoption of EHRs finally got a boost. The push came from The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), an economy jump starter that included wide ranging federal spending initiatives. Among those initiatives were incentives that encouraged the adoption and “meaningful use” of EHRs. 

It worked. Eventually. In a way. 

EHR adoption in 2008 sat about 9 percent for hospitals and 17 percent for office-based physicians, jumping to 96 percent and 78 percent respectively by 2015. 

Not insignificantly, the 1018 Health Information Technology Act (HITECH), buried in ARRA, nudged organizations away from “meaningful use” of EHRs and toward interoperability. A technology push, the hope was that systems would be more receptive to data collection, sharing, and patient access.   

New problems emerge

Encouraging the adoption of EHRs through incentives can be viewed at least as a little bit successful. Building EHR technology that works as intended and for everybody who touches the healthcare sector has been, unequivocally, a failure. 

The rush to grab incentives came at the expense of thoughtful design. Further, standards of care that might have factored into better models were not established.

The result: A heaping pile of healthcare technology debt.    

Today, EHRs still come with cost and access barriers for providers and patients. Systems are still woefully siloed. (So much for interoperability, data is still a hard thing for some EHRs to give up.) Security concerns abound. EHR workflows are so unfriendly and inefficient that doctors and therapists are largely serving as data entry clerks. That “role” contributes to some of the highest levels of burnout, adding fuel to the current mental health crisis. 

As Samant Virk, MD and MediSprout CEO, wrote in a recent article, “EHR and practice management platforms have been notoriously slow to evolve even among a technological revolution…”  

It’s here that I’m happy to report that, with Dr. Virk’s leadership and vision, the MediSprout solution does indeed represent the tech breakthrough that so many providers are looking for. I’m proud to be part of a team that includes some of the world’s best software designers and developers. We’re building a secure system that is thoughtfully designed with solutions that providers have asked for, easier migration included. 

Identifying the migration pain points

Early on, we heard from providers that the migration of data from one system to another is, for many, a virtually unapproachable task. Here are a few of the major migration issues that surfaced in our discovery sessions with providers:

• Some EHRs only export records as PDFs. That’s a problem because data from PDFs aren’t extractable for incorporation into a larger database, not easily anyway. You’re reduced to just mapping the file to the patient, which isn’t an efficient use of data.   
• Thorough migration includes more than just patient medical history. The data behind scheduling and visits, financial information, staff details, document templates and settings—it all needs to move. 
• There are also the issues of logistics. Transfer timing must be such that no data is lost from the cutoff from the old system to the start of the new. 
• Then of course, there’s understandable concern about downtime. Lost business due to an inoperable system during the switch is unacceptable for providers. 

It was clear to us early in our design and buildout phases that EHR migration needed to be part of our solution. And it is. 

Removing the barriers to better

Providers, practices, and therapists migrating from one EHR platform to MediSprout get full partnership from our migration support team. Our role is to do all the heavy lifting while you continue to provide care. New MediSprout clients experience a seamless migration of data that’s accomplished with no downtime, no interruption in patient access or visits, and no loss in revenue. Furthermore, we’ll work to automate access and management of that data (hallmark features of MediSprout). This will streamline workflows, simplify tasks, and create more time for care. 

Big feats

The migration technology and service achievements necessary to arrive at such a unique platform benefit were no small accomplishments and probably deserve their own story. At a high level, the consolidation of EHR and practice management tools into one platform sets the table for a seamless migration experience. Equally high level is our mindfulness of what we IT people refer to as semantic interoperability (SI). At the end of the day, SI is simply about designing technology that facilitates a better exchange between disparate data systems. Or any data systems. Helping data systems talk to each other more fluently ensures an efficient data transfer and easier data migration. Providers want more freedom to move about the EHR landscape, just like we do around the smartphone store.  

Ultimately, data migration, like everything that drives our platform, is a practical matter of thoughtful design based on the needs of providers who want to upgrade or acquire it. 

No matter how tricked out, technology isn’t much good to anybody if the barrier to entry is too steep. But there’s a hopeful new story there to be written. It starts by recognizing that migration is an issue. 

At MediSprout, we’re writing that chapter (among others).    

Manuel Gonzalez is a technical project manager at MediSprout.