White Paper: What Is Your EMR Connectivity Strategy?

"Have it your way." This famous slogan has become part of the hamburger competitive advertising folklore as McDonalds and Burger King fought for market share. As you may remember, the positioning was McDonalds only prepared hamburgers one way, and Burger King would add or take off items to fit your tastes.

Approaching integration with Electronic Health Records (EHR) or Electronic Medical Records (EMR) is much the same way. There are, however, two central questions:
1. How responsive do you want to be in establishing EMR connections to clinics, imaging centers, and laboratories?
2. How flexible do you want to be in adapting to the different EMR data specifications?

How your organization answers these questions will drive your EMR approach. How your healthcare organization delivers connectivity to EMRs will be quickly recognized in the marketplace. Ultimately, it will likely affect the number of referrals received from various physicians and the strength of a long term relationship.

This paper will outline the EMR integration approach options and the resulting attributes for your organization.