Integration engines tackle healthcare's lack of standards

By using multiple electronic health records (EHRs) and other applications, hospitals take a best-of-breed approach that allows them to use the most appropriate solution for different departments or requirements. Yet a lack of standards can force workarounds, data duplication, and interoperability problems for IT and end-users. To address this, some healthcare providers standardize on one platform across their organization, even though it may not meet the specific needs of departments such as radiology or surgery. Others, looking to retain these separate EHRs or access to legacy systems, use integration tools to provide users with access to data housed in multiple applications.