EHR Integration: Effective Practices to Facilitate Timely and Comprehensive Biomarker Testing

In the precision medicine age, health technology performance and interoperability has quickly become one of the most pivotal areas of oncology practice management and operations. Advancements in cancer screening and testing technologies as well as emerging and evolving biomarkers have led to a rapid increase in utilization of guideline-concordant biomarker testing. With this acceleration, cancer programs are ramping up clinical and technological infrastructure to meet this demand. However, many programs face formidable challenges when translating testing and treatment recommendations into clinical practice and communicating data across varying internal EHR systems and external technology platforms.

Hurdles in biomarker testing workflows, complex ordering processes, timely results reporting, and EDI and data-sharing barriers continue to challenge the multidisciplinary team. These challenges are often compounded in lower-resourced community cancer programs, where funding for new technology, integration tools, and training for staff is limited.

To address these growing challenges, the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC), with its project partner LUNGevity and support by AstraZeneca and Genentech, has launched an educational initiative to promote effective practices and processes to facilitate timely and comprehensive biomarker testing. This program will gather insights from stakeholders on current health technology performance, interoperability, and challenges programs and practices are facing with current EHR systems. This initiative will also examine ways cancer programs can optimize EHR systems to improve the quality and consistency of cancer diagnostics and integrate biomarker testing reminders, chart notes, and other triggers into EHR systems to improve workflows, enable timely cancer diagnosis and work-up, and reduce disparities in care for patients.

Through a series of education resources, including a live summit, podcast, blogs, and a comprehensive toolkit, this program will offer successful work-around solutions, resources, tips, and tools cancer programs can utilize to address EHR limitations and optimize care delivery.

EHR Integration Summit: Effective Practices to Facilitate Timely and Comprehensive Biomarker Testing

ACCC—with its project partner LUNGevity and support by AstraZeneca and Genentech—will convene for a live working summit in Austin, Texas to discuss effective practices and workaround solutions to overcome barriers to integrating biomarker testing into EHR systems, with a goal to identify opportunities for immediate actions in high-priority areas. Output and insights will be shared nationally and provide guidance for expansion of ACCC’s broader educational opportunities.

For more information on this project, please contact the ACCC Provider Education department.