Technical Insights: Integrating Your Health App with Epic EHR/EMR Systems

As health apps continue to revolutionize healthcare management as we know it, their seamless integration with Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems is becoming increasingly popular—and important. And Epic, one of the leading EHR/EMR systems, holds over 250 million patient records globally, making it ideal for system integration. That’s why in this blog, we’re exploring more of the specifics around integrating your health app with Epic EHR/EMR systems to enhance user experience and facilitate better patient-provider communication at your practice.

Thinking about integrating your app with Epic? Some of the benefits include:

Faster data access: Integration allows users to access their records, like lab results, medications, and immunizations, without the use of multiple platforms.

Enhanced interoperability: App integration promotes effective communication between healthcare providers by ensuring uniform information access across a patient’s care team.

Personalization: EHR/EMR-integrated healthcare apps allow providers to offer more accurate and personalized treatment plans and, as a result, patient outcomes.

Better security: Epic’s impressive security measures guarantee better-protected storage and transmission of user data.

And app integration happens in just a handful of easy steps:

Research Epic’s API

Epic provides several APIs for integration, including FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources), an industry standard for electronic healthcare information exchange. Reviewing this will help you better understand the API requirements and capabilities to determine its benefit for your practice.

Join their app marketplace

Epic App Orchard is their marketplace for compatible third-party apps, and membership gives you access to critical developer resources like API documentation, developer forums, and test environments.

Develop your strategy

Go over your approach for things like data types, exchange frequency, user authentication, and security protocols to better determine your app's integration requirements.

Leverage backend technology

Epic uses OAuth 2.0 for secure user authentication and authorization, and implementing it will more easily enable users to authorize access to their data. Then take advantage of Epic’s FHIR API to access and exchange data in a standardized format. Familiarize yourself with resources patients would find relevant and use appropriate HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) for data retrieval and modification.

Explore more advanced integration

Using SMART (Substitutable Medical Applications, Reusable Technologies) on FHIR will allow your app to run within the Epic EHR/EMR environment for a more seamless user experience.

Build, test, and submit

Utilize Epic’s resources to develop your integration and test its functionality and compliance with Epic’s requirements. Once complete, submit your app for review to ensure it meets standards and industry requirements.

Launch, integrate, and market 

Launch and integrate your app upon approval and market it to prospective users, highlighting the advantages of streamlined data access and improved interoperability.

So there you have it. Integrating your app with Epic EHR/EMR systems can streamline data access and improve communication for a significantly better user experience. Following these steps can help you tap into the growing potential of the industry—and get results.

Looking for expert guidance? Our team can help. Contact us to learn more about our services at Purple, Rock, Scissors and how we can support your health app integration journey.