When an Electronic health record (EHR) system is not flexible or interoperable with other tools, healthcare providers can have difficulty sharing data. Updated systems can be helpful to avoid administrative burdens and integrate EHRs with other software, like HIPAA compliant email platforms.
EHR vendor lock-in occurs when a healthcare provider is overly reliant on a specific vendor's EHR system. The reliance usually happens because the system has unique features or contracts that make it hard to connect with other systems or switch to a different vendor.
A Journal of Cloud Computing: Advances, Systems, and Applications study notes, “The lock-in issue arises when a company, for instance, decides to change cloud providers... but is unable to move applications or data across different cloud services because the semantics of resources and services of cloud providers do not match with each other.”
While lock-ins can initially provide benefits like integration within a single system, it presents mostly challenges. These challenges present a lack of flexibility and barriers to data sharing with external providers.
Many EHR vendors use proprietary software that creates closed ecosystems making it hard to exchange data with competing platforms. The lack of interoperability often forces organizations to turn to the vendor's other software offerings to improve data sharing.
These EHR systems are also often expensive to purchase and with staff training costs, organizations can’t easily switch platforms. This leads to organizations working around difficult-to-use systems instead of turning to more compatible competitors.
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act is a U.S. law enacted in 2009 to promote the adoption of electronic health records and improve the privacy and security of health information.
Hybrid solutions to data sharing refer to the approaches used to combine both on-premises and cloud-based resources allowing for the best of both environments for more flexible data management.