Zoom Announces Cerner EHR Integration for Telehealth Services

Zoom has announced that it is now accepting beta customers for a Cerner EHR integration to support telehealth services.

Healthcare organizations that use Cerner EHR systems will be able to launch secure Zoom virtual visits directly within their workflows. 

The integration notifies clinicians when the patient has entered the appointment waiting room. To join the scheduled session, providers click the meeting link in the patient’s chart.

Providers can also share test results and complete EHR documentation while in the Zoom meeting, which aims to help clinicians save time by working within a single platform.

Additionally, clinicians can enter and exit a telehealth 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,” Ron Emerson, Zoom’s global healthcare lead, wrote in the blog post announcement.

The EHR integration allows patients to join their video visit via a unique link sent to their email. Patients will also soon be able to launch their visit by clicking a link in their patient portal, the blog post noted.

Each meeting link has an embedded passcode unique to the specific patient and appointment to ensure security. Additionally, any person who joins the meeting is placed into a waiting room for added security until the provider is able to join the session. 

Telehealth is a rapidly evolving landscape. Today, Cerner has three distinct offerings within its telehealth portfolio: Amwell, Cerner Scheduled Video Visits (powered by AWS Chime), and Vendor Video Visits with third-party vendors that use publicly-available APIs, which is the nature of the relationship with Zoom.

Zoom also integrated with EHR platform Epic in 2019.

“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,” Emerson wrote.

Telehealth interoperability with EHR systems is key for delivering high quality care, according to guidance published by the Michigan State Medical Society.

COVID-19 accelerated efforts to connect patients and providers virtually. Now, providers are looking to single-source telehealth solutions that integrate with EHR systems to maintain telehealth visits on a large scale.

The article, authored by Sue Boisvert, BSN, MHSA, patient safety risk manager II at The Doctors Company, noted several benefits to telehealth interoperability with EHR systems, including patient engagement.

When surveyed, providers have reported that easy access to the EHR during a telehealth visit facilitates better care and rapport with the patient, Boisvert noted.

The provider can also easily create a visit summary and send it to the patient with any orders for diagnostic tests or referrals through single-source interoperable telehealth solutions, the article pointed out.