If you are a third-party wishing to integrate with an organization using Epic’s EMR, you have a number of options available to you. Depending on the level of integration you wish to pursue, the work effort required can range from a minimal amount of application setup to a full-fledged project implementation. This article discusses the different ways in which Epic integrations can be achieved.

Interfaces

We’ll refer to the first method as Interface integration, by which we mean connecting to an instance of Epic using a standards-based interface. Epic has tens of thousands of interfaces available using standards such as HL7, FHIR, Web Services, and more. If you are a third-party wishing to develop one of these interfaces, your best starting point will generally be to work closely with a healthcare organization that uses Epic to discuss the integration needs, including a discussion of whether using a standards-based interface (and which standard) is the best option.

Common categories and examples of interfaces include:

  • Scheduling interfaces

    • Incoming: scheduling interfaces to take appointments scheduled in an external system to create appointments in Epic

    • Outgoing: scheduling interfaces to take appointments scheduled in Epic and sending the data to external systems

  • Clinical interfaces

    • Incoming device integrations to take in data from outside systems and file them to Epic

    • Outgoing documentation to send PDF and RTF notes from Epic when encounters are closed)

  • Operational

    • Incoming telephony integration to take data from a caller and perform a “screen pop” in Epic with caller information

    • Outgoing telephony integration in the form of a click-to-call hyperlink

Reporting Workbench Extracts

The next method requires less technical setup than a full Interface, but your options will likely be limited and this may not be available for all use cases.

When we refer to a report extract/file transfer, broadly we’re describing a configuration whereby an automated, scheduled process is created to identify a subset of data to be queried, extracted, and then transferred to a destination.

Some examples of configurations that you could utilize this type of integration include:

  • Appointment extracts, to send information about upcoming appointments to a vendor to make automated phone calls

  • Billing extracts, to send financial data to an internal system
  • Clinical extracts, to send clinical information such as C-CDAs to interested parties

Batch Imports

This method essentially describes the reverse of Reporting Workbench Extracts. Instead of querying Epic, exporting data, and transferring to a third-party, batch imports instead take data that is extracted from third-party systems, and then generates a file formatted to be ingested by an Epic import that is run on a batch.

You’ll want to work closely with an Epic expert with knowledge of how Chronicles is structured to know which master files and items to import when pursuing such an integration.