Since 1992, DFB Consulting has been assisting academic medical centers and regional healthcare providers implement Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems. In that time, we have amassed a wealth of knowledge on how to address the complex issues surrounding turning islands of clinical healthcare data into unified information for clinicians, researchers, administrators and others involved in the healthcare delivery process.
Data generated by, and used for, clinical activities has an extended and complex life-cycle. In a patient specific structure, it can provide information for clinical care activities and decisions, document health and treatment history, and support the billing and reimbursement process. That same data, when viewed across the patient population, supports clinical research, QA assessments, and administrative decision support processes.
However, realizing any of these goals in an electronic and automated format requires that the data be propagated into an Electronic Medical Record. DFB Consulting approaches EMR data management from three perspectives:
Integration - An EMR must be correctly integrated with other clinical and administrative systems within an institution in order to be able to gather and disseminate timely, accurate and complete patient information. From architecting an integration approach, to selecting an integration vendor, to specifying, installing and testing interfaces, there are opportunities and pitfalls. A solid integration design and foundation enables rapid deployment of EMR functionality that requires cross-system data exchange. DFB Consulting has assisted many large healthcare organizations successfully navigate this process, from design, to build and deployment.
Aggregation - Integration without aggregation delivers a new EMR without clinical context. Patients are new; allergies, medications and problems are not documented; treatment history is not electronically available. Capturing this data via manual processes is time consuming and repetitive to clinicians. Additionally, EMR functionality is compromised; alerts are limited, treatment plans do not have enough information to function correctly. Cross-patient functionality of the EMR, such as cost analysis or clinical research, must wait until context is built over time. Building patient context within an EMR without an aggregation strategy requires thousands of clinician hours and takes years. System acceptance of the EMR is compromised at the most critical time of the system lifecycle, system delivery. This scenario can be avoided by aggregating patient data from your various integration sources into your EMR. DFB Consulting has assisted numerous clients with this process and has developed the Conversion Engine product and process to facilitate this process.
Conversion - EMR implementations frequently involve the retirement of systems containing health history data, be it a prior EMR system or a departmental system. When retiring a clinical system, the data management options are to lose the historic data, archive it with limited or no accessibility, or convert the data into the new EMR system - keeping it relevant, retrievable and researchable. Conversion has been recognized as the best solution, but also the most complex, time consuming, and expensive. DFB Consulting has developed the Conversion Engine product and process in order to make clinical healthcare data conversion a viable and cost-effective alternative. With over 10 years of clinical data conversion experience, we have a comprehensive library of conversion solutions for numerous clinical systems and applications.
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