EHR Integrations: Simplifying Telehealth Visits for Patients and Providers

For healthcare providers looking to the future, telehealth remains an important way to enhance care delivery and meet patients where they are. Telehealth utilization has stabilized at levels 38 times higher than before the pandemic, according to McKinsey, ranging from 13% to 17% across all specialties.

With virtual care here to stay, providers must focus on delivering a seamless experience for telehealth visits — one that’s easy, intuitive, and frictionless for patients, and secure, trusted, and simple from a clinical standpoint. That’s where integrations come in.

Zoom’s ability to integrate with popular electronic health record (EHR) platforms, including Cerner and Epic, makes it even easier to schedule, join, and document telehealth visits directly in a patient’s EHR. Learn about the benefits of these integrations and how they can help streamline the telehealth experience for patients and providers.

For providers who live in their EHR platform of choice day in and day out, integrating with Zoom offers many benefits.

• Simplified workflow: Physicians can launch virtual visits directly from the patient’s EHR, and document their notes in the EHR during the visit, saving them time by allowing them to work within a single platform.
• Seamless patient experience: Patients can connect to their visit from the patient portal or through a link sent to their email, without the need for a separate app or Zoom account.
• Unique meeting links: Each meeting link has an embedded passcode unique to the specific patient and appointment, meaning only those who have access to the meeting link or meeting ID and passcode can join. Additionally, any person who joins the meeting will be placed into a Waiting Room for added security until the provider is able to join the session. 

We’re excited to announce that we’re now accepting beta customers for Zoom’s new integration with Cerner’s electronic health record (EHR) platform, available by sending a message of interest on Cerner’s App Gallery or talking to your Zoom account executive.

Hospitals, health systems, physician offices, and clinics that use Cerner to share and access patient EHR data across the continuum of care will be able to launch secure Zoom virtual visits directly within Cerner. 

With the Zoom-Cerner integration, providers can:

• Get a notification within the patient’s Cerner PowerChart^® when the patient has entered the appointment Waiting Room.
• Click the meeting link within the patient’s PowerChart^® to join the scheduled session. Providers can also share test results and complete documentation while in the Zoom meeting, all within the patient’s PowerChart^®.
• Send an invite link to additional participants, like family members, interpreters, and other care providers, so they can join the session.
• Enter and exit a visit without disconnecting the session by placing the patient into the Waiting Room. This enables continuity of care between multiple caregivers, allowing a medical assistant to meet with the patient to review medications and history, then placing them back into the Waiting Room until the provider is ready.

Patients can:

• Join their video visit via a unique link sent to their email. In the near future, patients will have the ability to launch their visit by clicking a link in their Patient Portal, or sent by SMS if the provider uses Zoom Phone.
• Test their device to make sure their audio, video, and microphone are working.
• Join a video visit on their phone or tablet without downloading an app using Zoom’s mobile browser client. 
• Join a video visit without a Zoom account.

The Zoom app integrated with Epic, available on Epic’s App Orchard and in the Zoom App Marketplace, enables providers and patients to easily launch Zoom sessions right from Epic online health appointments.

Since the integration was first introduced in 2019, it’s been used by dozens of healthcare organizations across the U.S. to simplify their Epic-based video visits and streamline direct-to-patient care. 

With Zoom’s integration with Epic, providers can:

• Get notified via Epic when a patient has joined the scheduled video appointment.
• Start video visits directly from Epic while continuing to document case notes.
• Invite additional participants to the video visit, like a consulting doctor, family member, or interpreter.
• Enter and exit a visit without disconnecting the session by placing the patient into the Waiting Room, allowing different providers to meet with the patient individually during a session, then placing them back into the Waiting Room until the next provider is ready.

Patients can:

• Launch Zoom from MyChart on their personal computer or mobile device. 
• Join a video visit on their phone or tablet without downloading an app using the mobile browser client. 
• Join a video visit without a Zoom account.
• Test their device to make sure their audio, video, and microphone are working.
• Rejoin the video visit even after dropping out as long as the provider is still in the session.

Epic, MyChart, and App Orchard are trademarks or registered trademarks of Epic Systems Corporation.

To learn about these and other integrations, visit:

• Zoom App Marketplace
• Cerner App Gallery
• Epic App Orchard

For more on how Zoom helps connect hospitals, health systems, clinics, pharma-biotech companies, and other health organizations, visit the Zoom for Healthcare page.