In a field crowded with patient engagement apps, Babyscripts’ integration-first approach sets it apart from the competition. Unlike most patient engagement apps, which typically do not integrate with the medical record, Babyscripts’ tech stack allows the program to integrate into other programs and platforms, making it flexible to our customers’ needs.
We’ve compiled a list of FAQs to help our clients understand the importance of integration, and why we’ve made it an essential part of our strategy.
Why integrate?
Let’s start with the primary value-add — integration workflows replace time-costly manual workflows.
Imagine doing away with the tedious process of manually registering patients, one by one, via a web form. At one site, a team of staff members recruited nearly 3000 patients in a single quarter — manually. If an average staff member takes 2 minutes to complete a single recruitment, that’s about 100 hours that could have been saved through an integrated onboarding with the EMR.
At another site, we’ve embedded the Babyscripts app into a custom deployment of Epic MyChart, which has dramatically improved efficiency. The Babyscripts icon is made available to every female patient of child-bearing age, freeing access and reducing hurdles to access content. Market capture is made easier when the patient is using the app before the new OB visit.
How does integration work?
Babyscripts integrates through multiple methods, all of which aim at easing the user’s burden in ongoing maintenance and operations. We focus our integration efforts on workflows that help us do more with less.
The most common type of integration we implement is Onboarding. This integration converts the patient registration workflow, changing it to a more automated one within the customer’s EMR. For example, at our customers’ Epic sites, the integrated onboarding workflow automatically orders Babyscripts at the new OB encounter — directly in the protocol order set.
While we like to focus our integration descriptions on the net result — the product and the workflow — we understand that our customers want to know how each is done.
Currently, we integrate via HL7 as a primary method. However, work is always in progress on the next capability so that we can apply these workflow advantages to all of our customers. A partnership between Babyscripts and Xealth (a Seattle-based EMR integrator) is underway. We’ve also deployed a fully integrated embeddable app into one customer’s Epic MyChart app. Work is being done to refresh and optimize our AthenaNet integration, and to support patient and provider single sign-on to our platform.
How does integration affect workflow?
Integration improves workflow — easier and faster than a manual workflow, it also enables the provider to see all a patient’s information in one place, rather than toggling back and forth between systems.
It is much faster to enroll a patient in a program like Babyscripts if there’s no need to leave the EMR — an imperative for nurses and providers who are already handicapped by short appointment windows.
From a provider standpoint, integration is essential to getting buy-in for a solution from the rest of the care team — administrators, nurses, front desk, et al. In an already busy environment, efficiency is essential. The EMR is the standard for documenting and delivering care — for Babyscripts or any solution to be plug-and-play, integration into the EMR is a necessary step.
Why Babyscripts? Why not opt for an in-house solution that utilizes the EMR?
The short answer? Babyscripts is less expensive, more effective, and built to scale — and has five years of collateral and clinical research behind it.
Unlike a homegrown digital solution, Babyscripts has exclusive license to protocols that allow the company to make categorical claims in the market around efficacy and outcomes, and it’s been validated through peer-reviewed research.
Babyscripts has a wealth of IP in remote patient monitoring — how to maintain compliance, for example — and in detecting and triaging abnormal data points to reduce false positives and elevate real problems.
While some health systems might invest in specific component parts of what Babyscripts
typically offers (a mobile app or integrating data points from IOT devices back to the record), the real challenge lies in scaling programs and offering the right protocol at the point of care to generate actual ROI.
Babyscripts is the expert in remote obstetrical care, and with five years of collateral, assets, and best practices, is fully built to scale — making it significantly cheaper than a health system trying to build and maintain their own program.
What are the requirements for integration?
All that’s needed to get started with integration is a desire to do it — and an IT project manager who can request resources. Reach out today to your account representative to talk integration!
By Chun Wong, Director of Solution Engineering, Babyscripts
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