How to develop lightweight ancillary tools connected to electronic health records systems

We’re already familiar with the HITECH Act and how it offers money to physicians, hospitals, and multi-hospital systems to become “meaningful users” of certified electronic health records (EHR) systems. Since most hospitals and large providers who are going after stimulus money will need to install an EHR, it’s important to choose one that allows great integration so that the investment can be realized for many years to come.

Because most EHR vendors are focused on their own specific certification requirements (and not your specific enterprise needs), it’s important to have a strategy for how to extend EHR systems. I recently wrote an article for IBM’s developerWorks online magazine describing how to develop lightweight ancillary tools connected to electronic health records systems.

Here are the topics I covered:

• Meaningful use has catapulted EHR back into the limelight
• The monolithic single-vendor approach won’t work long-term
• Service-oriented architecture (SOA) and an integrated approach is necessary
• Lightweight applications wrapped around services are needed now
• The types of lightweight applications requested by users
• User authentication, authorization, and single sign-on (SSO)
• Building your new lightweight applications