Custom Interfaces

Complete Data at the Point of Care

Medsphere’s CareVue® electronic health record (EHR) solution includes a comprehensive suite of interfaces that leverages other software applications and databases behind the scenes to put real-time patient information at the clinician’s fingertips. Based on industry HL7, EDI and ANSI standards (e.g., x.12), the CareVue Interface Suite has evolved to just under 100 interfaces that include functions related to admission, discharge and transfer (ADT); orders and results; procedures; charges; images and text.Medsphere’s experienced interface experts collaborate with your in-house technical and clinical teams to deliver, test, deploy and support our standard CareVue interfaces (see list below). Additional custom interfaces are also available. With a comprehensive EHR solution like CareVue, there are no barriers to ensuring physicians, nurses and other team members have the information they need where and when they need it. An CareVue subscription includes the following interfaces: [Insert included interfaces table here]

Interface Philosophy

Medsphere recognizes that interfaces among disparate healthcare IT systems can be a significant pain point for hospitals. Often, these interfaces don’t work as promised, even while associated maintenance and upgrades add significant expense to the overall budget.Medsphere uses the CareVue EHR, a central clinical data repository and robust interface development to lessen interface pain and extend the reach of the EHR throughout the clinical enterprise. Over the course of many implementations, we have developed a set of engineering best practices related to the proper construction of interfaces to the CareVue EHR. Medsphere parses HL7 data, massages the data when necessary, and then places that data in file manager data structures using appropriate application programming interfaces (APIs). Indeed, an important part of our best practices is the proper use of APIs for data lookups and updates. 

Medsphere’s Interface Development Approach

The Medsphere interface and technical solutions team uses a tiered approach to interface development based on the amount of effort required. Medsphere’s pricing for interface projects is much lower (50 to 70 percent) than that of proprietary solution providers, giving customers an inexpensive route to enhanced capability. 

Medsphere Interface Development Tiers

• Tier 3 (high complexity)
• Tier 2 (moderate complexity)
• Tier 1 (low complexity)

Tiers & Pricing

Interface pricing is based on the complexity of interface coding. An example of a complex (Tier 3) interface is a lab orders interface with multiple trigger points and variables. Contrast that with a relatively straightforward (Tier 1) interface such as an outbound allergies interface. 

Interface Customization Hours Included in CareVue Subscription

• Medsphere’s unique subscription-based pricing model includes 20 hours of interface customization during a typical Phase 1 implementation.
• Customers are allowed to shift portions of the 20-hour allotment for any interface to another interface in the library during Phase 1 of implementation.
• The hours for customization expire on completion of Phase 1 with the realization of Go Live.
• After Go Live, 20 hours of annual interface customization are included in Medsphere’s subscription service.
• If a customer requires an interface that is not in the library, Medsphere’s interface and technical solutions team can provide a quote for additional customization*.

*Customization refers to the modification of code inside of the interface engine (Mirth) and any server-side development. Customization efforts are outside of the pool of customization hours and are quoted separately.Medsphere’s Interface and Technical Solutions design team conducts development and review with input from the customer, which must also align with the deliverables that accompany data migration and management. Consistency in these areas is important for system integration best practices and patient registration data quality, as well as avoiding and remediating duplicate patient records.