How Bridge Improves Patient Engagement for athenahealth® Users

Updated on August 13, 2020.

athenahealth® has two product lines, the athenahealth® core product, and the recently acquired Centricity product line.

athenahealth® bought Centricity™ on Feb. 7, 2019, from Virence Health. Bridge is capable of integrating with both of the athenahealth® EHR/PM product lines.

Healthcare organizations using athenahealth® frequently come to Bridge seeking a solution to consolidate systems and increase patient engagement. Bridge offers an industry-leading user experience through its patient-centric design, mobile app, and robust EHR/PM interfaces. Some of the more common reasons to switch to Bridge’s patient engagement solution include:

  • The need for a client-branded mobile app.
  • The inability to efficiently include instructions within appointment reminders.
  • Outdated third-party patient portal options for the Centricity product line.

The Bridge Patient Portal solution includes:

  • A robust, FHIR-ready healthcare API that supports bidirectional interfaces into the patient portal data.
  • An enterprise-class set of integrated tools and information that patients need to successfully manage their health from both a web application and mobile app.
  • The 2015 Edition ONC Healthcare IT Certification with advanced CCD, interface, and messaging functionality for both provider groups and EHR vendor.
  • A robust support system via telephone, email, and in-portal ticket.
  • A library of personalized patient education content and instructions relating to an upcoming care visit, typically accessed online, which can be sent via secure patient messaging software, SMS, email, or push notification.

Bridge is especially helpful to healthcare organizations that own multiple EHR and RCM/PM solutions, and who are seeking to connect their disparate EHR/PM/RCM environments with a single patient portal. Bridge offers a vendor-neutral patient portal and patient engagement solution, which can connect with any interfaceable EHR, RCM, or PM software system, including athenahealth®’s products. In cases where athenahealth® is used alongside other EHR and or PM vendors, Bridge can provide a single patient portal and client-branded mobile app which connects these disparate source systems. This provides patients with a “single pane of glass” or “digital front door” to access important self-service tools via their web browser or through a published iOS or Android mobile app.

athenahealth®

Common EHR pain points:

  • Inadequate customizability
  • Deficient interoperability in multi-EHR environments
  • Lack of control over the information sent through a portal (e.g., sensitive lab results, incomplete progress notes or age-restricted information)
  • Absence of a client-branded mobile app for iOS and/or Android

Avoid Piecemealed Patient Engagement Software

Many healthcare organizations leverage numerous third-party patient engagement software vendors to “piece together” a suite of self-service tools for their patients. Some of the more common “one-off” patient engagement tools include:

Common one-off patient engagement toolsExamples
Patient portal softwareEZ Access™, Medfusion™, Intelichart™
Appointment reminder software10to8 ™, SimplyBook.me™
Patient scheduling software Odoro™, ZocDoc™
Patient intake softwarePhreesia™
Telemedicine softwareSnapMD™, Doxy.me™, Zoom
Patient survey softwarePatientlink™, Zonka™
Patient messaging softwareRelatient™, Luma™
Mobile access via a mobile app solutionFollowMyHealth®

 

Bridge offers a single patient engagement solution that offers most of the functionality offered in the above-listed systems, helping healthcare organizations build a strong foundation for reaching their patient engagement goals. Purchasing “one-off,” “piecemealed” solutions can result in the following issues:

  • High interface development/maintenance costs
  • Expensive license and utilization fees
  • Inability to respect patient communication preferences
  • The need for patients to remember multiple usernames and passwords

How Bridge Improves Interoperability

Bridge increases interoperability by working with the most prevalent healthcare interface industry standards, including Health Level Seven (HL7), Continuity of Care Document (CCD), and Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) via Bridge’s robust and fully-documented healthcare API. Bridge can also build custom, non-standard interfaces designed for advanced integration between multiple systems where external compatibility support is not required.

 

bridge api

Bridge improves interoperability by enabling you to share data with disparate clinical and financial systems, providing interfaces when and where you need them. Below is a list of our interface capabilities.

Bidirectional

  • Registration & demographics
  • Secure messaging
  • CCDA
  • Bill pay
  • Appointment self-scheduling & cancellation
  • Prescriptive refills
  • Documents
  • Patient-caregiver/proxy relationships

Unidirectional

  • Patient forms (Portal to EHR/PM/RCM)

If you’re using athenahealth® you may likely be aware of its limitations and looking for a single patient engagement solution that fits your healthcare organization’s needs. Bridge seamlessly integrates with all of the main athenahealth® EHR/PM products and can simultaneously connect with various other disparate systems to improve interoperability. Our feature-rich, secure, and client-branded platform is used by over 60 outpatient groups, hospitals, integrated delivery networks, and EHR vendors across the US. Contact us today to learn how we’ve helped athenahealth® users improve patient engagement with our comprehensive and easy-to-use solution.

DISCLAIMER: All product and company names are trademarks™ or registered® trademarks of their respective holders. Bridge Patient Portal is not affiliated, endorsed, or sponsored in any way to the service providers mentioned in this article.

Blake Rodocker
Blake Rodocker

Blake joined Bridge Patient Portal in 2016 after transferring from our parent company Medical Web Experts. Since then, he’s acted as Bridge’s Business Development Manager. Blake is passionate about driving collaboration with clients, partners, and internal teams to achieve performance goals and successful relationships.