The Integration Opportunity: A Blueprint for Reliable Device Data

In a modern ICU alone, it’s estimated that tens of thousands of data points are generated from a single patient each day, for ventilators, IV pumps, and other medical devices. This information must travel from the device to the patient’s electronic health record (EHR), and the quality of the connections that transfer this data is critical. While essential, these connections are often complex and can vary in reliability. The real challenge in healthcare technology isn’t a lack of data; it’s a lack of reliable data in the EHR. 

These complex interfaces present challenges that require careful management. The solution requires a practical, clinically led approach to ensure the data clinicians rely on is accurate and complete. 

The high cost of data gaps 

While data standards like HL7 and FHIR provide a common language, EHR vendors build their platforms on proprietary data architectures. This lack of standardization across technical underpinnings forces hospitals to manage a wide variety of connections, many of which are point-to-point interfaces.

The result? Data gaps that can negatively impact clinical data integrity and patient care. For example, two different manufacturers of ventilators may each require custom-built interfaces or some models may not even have the ability to integrate. Every unique connection is another potential point of data failure, and each represents an opportunity for improvement. 

In the above example, the inability to interface some of the ventilators in a Level 3 NICU requires nurses to leave the bedside and manually enter the data. While clinicians will always prioritize the patient, this extra step adds to a nurse’s workload, takes time away from direct patient observation, and can complicate the process of making timely clinical decisions in critical care.

The challenge of medical device data gaps extends beyond the hospital walls. As hospital-at-home programs grow, health systems must now integrate data from patient-supplied devices like weight scales, blood pressure cuffs, and pulse oximeters. These consumer-grade technologies bring new connectivity hurdles and additional points of susceptibility to patient care. 

 A cross-functional approach to medical device integration 

Proper device integration is more than a technical task; it requires coordination across multiple teams. The most successful health systems treat integration as both a technical build and a clinical transformation. This approach ensures that data is complete, usable, and actionable at the point of care. 

The right team at the start reduces risk, prevents delays, and delivers solutions that meet clinical and operational needs. A strong cross-functional team brings together people who understand the devices and systems, and how they affect care delivery in real time. Here are five roles to include in the medical device integration team. 

• Clinical leaders who align data flow with care delivery and make sure technology supports, rather than disrupts, workflows. 
• EHR and interface specialists who configure and maintain technical connections between devices and the EHR, which helps guarantee data accuracy and reliability. 
• Biomedical and network teams who support physical infrastructure and device connectivity are essential for stability and uptime. 
• Cybersecurity experts who protect patient data and reduce risks in device communication. 
• Application analysts and educators who confirm that the data is positioned where and how clinicians need it, and that staff use it effectively. 

This structure works because clinical and technical experts collaborate early, before timelines and vendors are set. It prevents costly mistakes, builds internal ownership, and prepares organizations for future needs like Artificial Intelligence (AI), remote monitoring, and legacy device replacement. 

Most importantly, this approach improves patient care. With reliable device data in the EHR, clinicians make faster, better-informed decisions and spend less time troubleshooting and more time with patients. 

Common pitfalls in medical device integration projects 

Careful planning when health systems embark on medical device integration projects is often overlooked in two key areas. The first may seem more inconsequential than it actually is – project team membership. 

As noted by the list of roles above, a clinically led, cross-functional team approach is essential during medical device integration projects to close data gaps, overcome common project pitfalls, complete optimal testing, and ensure proper oversight. Often, integration projects can be improved by ensuring the project team members represent all of the potentially impacted workflows. Without certain members from the clinical team, for instance, a project team might engage in only superficial testing. Meaning, they can confirm a new connection is active but may fail to verify if it negatively impacts other systems or clinical workflows. This problem can be compounded by delayed clinical input, where the frontline staff who will use the technology are only brought in for a final sign-off, long after the core design decisions have been made.

Finally, the organization must establish an integrated device management plan. This includes asking who is accountable for the interface and what steps should be taken during downtime. For critical devices, who on the clinical and IT teams owns performance and reliability? If the device stops sending data or the EHR experiences downtime, what steps would a nurse take immediately and practically? 

How to measure value 

We must evaluate standards like HL7 and FHIR not only by their technical specs but by their ability to deliver accurate, real-time data to clinicians. Their effectiveness depends on network stability and infrastructure. For example, predictive sepsis models rely on consistent, high-quality interface data to provide early alerts that improve outcomes. 

Ultimately, the key question may be: Which costs more and/or introduces more risk — a new, fully-integrated anesthesia machine, or the ongoing operational cost and clinical burden of supporting an outdated system with unreliable data?

The true value of system integration is ultimately demonstrated by its practical impact on care delivery: fewer documentation errors, quicker clinical decisions, and more time with patients.

Photo: invincible_bulldog, Getty Images

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