How Does dbtech Support Multi-Site Organizations with Different EHRs at Each Location?
This is one of the most common questions we receive from health systems and regional hospital networks that have grown through acquisition and now operate with two, three, or more different EHR platforms across their portfolio. The concern is understandable: if a downtime solution requires a specific EHR integration, does having multiple EHR platforms mean multiple different downtime solutions, multiple vendor relationships, and multiple sets of maintenance obligations?
The short answer is no. dbtech’s architecture is designed to support multi-EHR environments from a single deployment framework, which is one of the features that makes it particularly well suited for organizations that have grown through acquisition.
How the Multi-EHR Integration Works
dbtech’s downtime solution connects to each EHR platform through its own HL7 interface. Each site in the network has an HL7 integration configured for its specific EHR, whether that is Epic at the flagship hospital, MEDITECH at the community hospital, and athenahealth at the acquired outpatient clinics. The integration at each site feeds patient data from that site’s EHR into the local downtime workstations using the same HL7 message types: ADT feeds for census data, pharmacy data for the MAR, and demographic information for patient identification.
From the perspective of the clinical and administrative staff at each site, the downtime workstations look and function consistently regardless of which EHR their site uses. The data displayed on the workstation comes from their local EHR through the site-specific integration. The eForms library is configured to match their specific workflows. The wristband and label printing works the same way. The difference in EHR platform is invisible to the end user.
From the perspective of the central IT team, the multi-EHR environment means maintaining multiple integration configurations, but dbtech’s monitoring dashboard provides a single view across all sites and all integrations. The dashboard shows the sync status, data currency, and HL7 health for every workstation at every site regardless of which EHR it is connected to, so the central team can monitor the entire network’s downtime readiness from a single interface without needing to log into each site’s EHR separately.
What Happens When One Site Migrates to a New EHR
One of the most practically relevant questions for multi-site organizations is what happens to the dbtech integration when a site migrates from one EHR to another. This is a common scenario for organizations that are in the process of standardizing their portfolio onto a single enterprise EHR platform.
When a site migrates, the dbtech integration needs to be reconfigured for the new EHR. dbtech’s integration team manages this reconfiguration as part of the migration support process, coordinating with both the outgoing and incoming EHR teams to ensure that the downtime integration is live on the new platform before the migration go-live date. The goal is that the site arrives at go-live with the new EHR and a fully functional dbtech integration already in place, rather than discovering post-migration that the downtime infrastructure needs to be rebuilt. For more on how EHR migrations affect downtime readiness, see our post on how EHR migration affects your downtime readiness and what to do about it.
Common Forms Library Across a Multi-EHR Network
One of the operational advantages of dbtech in a multi-EHR environment is the ability to maintain a common core forms library across all sites regardless of EHR platform. Consent forms, registration forms, and downtime documentation forms that are standardized across the network can be configured once and deployed to all sites, while site-specific forms that reflect local workflow differences can be added to individual site libraries without affecting the network-wide standard.
This capability is particularly valuable for organizations that want to standardize their downtime documentation practices across acquired facilities. Rather than inheriting each acquired site’s idiosyncratic paper form library and paper backup procedures, the acquiring organization can deploy a consistent dbtech eForms library that reflects the network’s standards, with Managed eForms providing the ongoing maintenance to keep those forms current across all sites.
To discuss how dbtech would be configured for your specific multi-EHR environment, request a demo or contact our integration team to walk through the technical architecture for each of your EHR platforms.