Electronic health record (EHR) migrations are becoming more common as healthcare organizations consolidate. However, this process is often challenging, prompting issues like systems downtime, lost productivity, and data quality concerns. As the leading partner in clinical terminology, IMO Health has observed these hurdles for decades and compiled key insights to help you navigate them.
Planning for an EHR migration is an opportunity to improve your organization’s data practices. Rather than simply transplanting legacy issues into your new system, this transition offers a fresh approach to organizing, mapping, and standardizing data, which can enhance interoperability and prevent downstream issues. But that opportunity doesn’t stop once you’ve migrated EHRs, the same strategy that will help you evaluate your practices before migration are just as valuable to think about after.
In this insight brief, we outline five essential considerations for a smoother, more strategic migration. Each consideration is designed to help healthcare leaders like you reduce risks and support long-term data quality and usability.
For a preview of the insight brief, keep reading.
Do my old and new EHR systems ‘speak the same language?’
Central to the process of maintaining accurate code mapping is ensuring that both EHRs (the one you’re leaving and the one being adopted) speak the same language; that there is semantic interoperability between them. This can be a challenge since providers can and do use a variety of words, phrases, acronyms, even regional slang, to document patient problems.
An experienced clinical terminology partner can help alleviate this issue in two ways: 1) by consolidating the multitude of ways to describe a patient problem and automatically connecting them to a single, agreed upon term, and 2) by mapping that term to all of the appropriate standardized codes, not just a single primary code that may not capture the full patient narrative or clinical intent.
Having the most widely used and comprehensive terminology available – at the legacy and destination EHRs – can also help facilitate the smooth and complete transfer of data. Take Continuity of Care Documents (CCDs), for example. While CCDs only require SNOMED® codes, that code set tells just a narrow slice of the patient story. Incorporating a robust terminology layer can help tell (and ultimately transmit) a more specific and complete patient picture.
To learn what else you should consider before (and after) migrating EHRs:
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