Saying Yes to Integration

“At the desktop, this is allowing us to integrate two types of voice with EMR,” Murry says. “One is the user can navigate the EMR through voice. The other part is I can speak to boxes into the EMR.  I can speak to the box in the EMR, which Dragon can do that today. You can click on a free text box and speak to it.  But with the API integration we’re working on with M*Modal and Allscripts, you can then take that free text after the physician has just spoken and use a natural language processing engine to go through that text and then populate structured elements in the EMR.”

Both Murry and Spooner seem to feel good about possibilities when it comes to integrated data. Murry mentioned a number of other integrated projects within his hospital, such as moving data from pre-operation to the operating room, and moving data in house between specialists.

It’s all about tying pieces across the care continuum, Spooner says. He wants integrated technologies to identify where the patient is at any given point and where the “optimal next step” should take them in their care. He also adds these technologies will be used from a population health standpoint.  

When advising those who wish to embark on a similar mission, Spooner recommends making sure it aligns closely with an organization’s business strategy and recognize that it’s an evolutionary process. “There’s that old saying, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day,’ and I think that really applies here,” he says.

For Murry, he says as a CIO, he would push his vendor to give them the type of open platform he has been provided. “When you look at the demands that are coming at us with health reform to do what we have to do and to be competitive in the market, we are going to have to move a lot faster than we move today. This gives us the capability to move faster,” he says.