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Integrating the EHR, that is, enabling the EHR and other software applications to exchange data with each other without loss of meaning or accuracy, is one of the critical tasks of the EHR implementation and of ongoing production support. Integrating the EHR begins with defining the components to be integrated. The EHR suite is a suite of applications that you purchase from the vendor and that share a common database. It may include scheduling, registration, outpatient EHR, inpatient EHR, Emergency Department EHR, ADT, pharmacy, laboratory billing, and other applications. Ancillary applications are external to the EHR suite, but send information to the suite's database (for example, laboratory and pathology results) and may receive information from it (e.g., patient demographics) (see Figure 11.1).While part of the value proposition of buying an EHR suite from one vendor is that the suite's components are theoretically integrated from the design stage forward, this is not likely to be entirely the case. So EHR integration has a dual focus: first on establishing interfaces with ancillary applications, and second on integrating data definitions and shared software functions within the EHR suite.

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