Automating Data Migration with Artificial Intelligence Saves Time and Supports Clinical Decision-Making
Harmony Healthcare IT and DrFirst Come Together to Improve EHR Data Migration by Reducing Manual Entry and Errors While Easing Clinician Burnout and Improving Patient Outcomes
Healthcare providers rely on accurate information in electronic health record (EHR) systems so that medication data can trigger automatic safety alerts for potential allergy and drug interactions during prescribing and transitions of patient care. However, that data can be compromised when migrating it from one EHR to another due to varying terminology, disparities in formulary service vendors, imperfect interoperability standards, and inconsistent use of national drug codes. Now, a strategic offering between Harmony Healthcare IT, a data management firm that moves and stores patient records, and health technology pioneer DrFirst employs artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to automate the process of migrating structured data from one EHR to another to inform clinical decision-making.
“Manual data entry is typically required after a clinical data migration because each EHR has varying schemas for storing structured information,” said James Hammer, PMP, Senior Vice President at Harmony Healthcare IT. “Our relationship with DrFirst will apply proven AI and ML to greatly reduce manual intervention. The solution automates the crosswalk of disparate structured fields and converts descriptive text to codified data at a high success rate. This will save our clients time and result in more satisfied clinicians who count on the integrity of migrated data to provide quality care.”
SmartProcessor, part of DrFirst’s award-winning SmartSuite solutions, uses AI and ML to solve data fidelity and interoperability issues between various systems and formats, resulting in complete, clean, and consumable clinical data for the receiving system and end users. The patented AI engine normalizes drug names and prescription instructions (known as “sigs”) into consistent terms while processing “free text” so it prepopulates into discrete fields within the EHR.
“Without SmartProcessor in place, clinical staff often spend hours gathering information to manually enter into their EHR, which contributes to burnout and staff retention issues, and can introduce keystroke errors,” said G. Cameron Deemer, president of DrFirst. “These are two critical issues, as clinician burnout has increased sharply since the pandemic, and a keystroke error of one decimal point for a medication could cause tremendous harm in some cases.”
Working with healthcare delivery organizations of all sizes, including many of the largest integrated delivery networks in the U.S. and Canada, Harmony Healthcare IT has worked with DrFirst to reduce the amount of manual cleansing and mapping work required in a data migration for its clients. Additionally, as the 21st Century Cures Act calls for greater interoperability and the healthcare industry continues to transition to a value-based care model, the DrFirst solution “readies” data to move meaningfully from disparate sources to a target EHR for more seamless information-sharing and more informed decision-making.
To educate provider organizations on clinical data migration and the critical role SmartProcessor plays in the process, Harmony Healthcare IT and DrFirst will host a webinar entitled “Creating a Better EHR Go-Live for Your Clinicians” on July 20, 2022, at 1:00 p.m. ET. Registration for the event is available on the Harmony Healthcare IT webinar page.
