One of the most common hesitations healthcare organizations have when evaluating a downtime solution is the EHR question: will this actually work with the system we have? It is a fair concern. Healthcare technology vendors routinely promise interoperability that falls short in practice, requiring custom development work, lengthy integration timelines, and IT resources the organization does not have.
dbtech’s answer to that question is straightforward: yes, it works with your EHR. Not because of a broad marketing claim, but because of a technical approach that has been refined over more than 30 years of working with Epic, Cerner, MEDITECH, and dozens of other platforms.
The Integration Model: HL7 as the Foundation
The way dbtech connects to your EHR is through HL7, the standard messaging format used by healthcare systems to exchange electronic protected health information. HL7 is platform-agnostic by design. It is the common language that different healthcare IT systems use to communicate with each other, and it is supported by virtually every major EHR in use today.
When dbtech is implemented at your facility, an inbound HL7 interface is established between your EHR and the dbtech Downtime Solution. From that point forward, every patient registration, census update, and relevant clinical event in your EHR is automatically transmitted to dbtech in real time. The downtime system maintains a continuously updated copy of your patient data — not a static snapshot, but a live mirror of what your EHR knows right now.
This approach means that dbtech does not need a proprietary connector for each individual EHR. The HL7 standard handles the translation, and dbtech’s integration team has built and tested this connection with the full range of EHR systems that hospitals actually use. As noted on the dbtech Downtime Healthcare FAQ page, the solution is designed to be compatible with all major EHR systems, including Epic, Cerner, and MEDITECH, without requiring significant IT changes or disruption to existing clinical workflows.
Epic Integration
Epic is the market-leading EHR in large academic medical centers and integrated health systems. dbtech has extensive experience implementing its downtime solution in Epic environments, and the HL7 integration operates reliably across Epic’s various modules and deployment configurations.
During an Epic outage, whether planned maintenance or an unplanned failure, dbtech provides clinical staff with access to the patient census, registration data, and medication records that were last synchronized from Epic. Staff can continue registering patients, printing barcoded wristbands and labels, capturing signatures with dbtech’s eForms solution, and documenting clinical workflows, all without Epic being available.
When Epic comes back online, dbtech’s Rapid Recovery feature transmits all data collected during the downtime event back into Epic via outbound HL7. Recovery that would otherwise take days of manual re-entry is completed automatically.
Cerner Integration
Cerner, now part of Oracle Health, is one of the most widely deployed EHR platforms in community hospitals and health systems. dbtech’s integration with Cerner is well-established, with a long track record of deployments that span both inpatient and outpatient settings.
One dbtech customer put it this way in a published testimonial: “Once we added Ras we were able to get so much more out of our investment in Cerner.” That speaks to how dbtech extends the value of the Cerner environment rather than working around it, using Cerner as the authoritative source of patient data and ensuring that data remains accessible and actionable even when the Cerner system is offline.
For more technical detail on how the Cerner integration works, see the dbtech overview of downtime protection for EHR systems.
MEDITECH Integration
MEDITECH is the preferred EHR for many community hospitals and critical access hospitals across the United States and internationally. dbtech’s integration with MEDITECH follows the same HL7-based model, a live inbound feed that keeps the downtime system current, and an outbound HL7 transfer that pushes recovery data back into MEDITECH when the system is restored.
For hospitals running MEDITECH, this means that scheduled maintenance windows, which MEDITECH hospitals perform regularly, do not have to mean paper-based workflows for clinical staff. The downtime system is loaded with current data before the window begins, staff work electronically throughout, and recovery is automated when MEDITECH comes back online.
Other EHR Systems
Beyond Epic, Cerner, and MEDITECH, dbtech’s HL7-based integration model supports a wide range of other EHR and clinical information systems. If your facility runs a platform that is not among the three most common, dbtech’s integration team will assess the HL7 capabilities of your specific environment and configure the connection accordingly.
This flexibility is particularly valuable for multi-site health systems that operate different EHR platforms at different facilities, a more common situation than most people assume. dbtech’s solution can be deployed across facilities with different EHR environments, with each site receiving patient data from its own EHR through its own HL7 connection, while the organization maintains centralized management and oversight.
Beyond Data Access: A Complete Backup System
Integration with your EHR is the technical foundation of dbtech’s solution, but the goal is not just data access, it is a complete operational backup system that keeps your healthcare organization running during any EHR outage. That means:
- Real-time patient data that is always current when a downtime event begins
- Electronic workflows for registration, documentation, printing, and signature capture
- Isolated workstations that are resilient to ransomware and network failures
- Automated recovery that eliminates manual re-entry when your EHR is restored
- Scalable deployment that supports single facilities and multi-site health systems alike
For a complete picture of what the solution includes, visit the dbtech Downtime Solutions page and explore the dbtech products overview. You can also review how other healthcare organizations have approached downtime readiness in the dbtech resources library.
If you are evaluating downtime solutions and want to understand exactly how dbtech would integrate with your specific EHR, the best next step is a free Downtime Audit Assessment. The dbtech team will walk through your current environment, confirm the integration path for your EHR, and give you a clear picture of what the solution would look like at your facility, no generic demos, no guesswork.
Contact dbtech to get started.