How Bridge Improves Patient Engagement for Centricity™ Users

  • Posted On June 2nd
  • In Interoperability

Updated on June 15, 2020.

Centricity™ was introduced to the market in 2003 by GE Healthcare™; since then, the software has been acquired by multiple companies including GE Medical Systems™ in 2002, then sold to Virence on July 11, 2018, and is now owned by Athenahealth®, who bought it on Feb. 7, 2019. Bridge is capable of integrating with all of the main Centricity™ EHR/PM products. This includes Centricity Practice Solution (CPS) (now athenaPractice), Centricity Business (now athenaCollector ®), and Centricity EMR (now athenaClinicals®). As Centricity™ does not have its own "built-in" patient portal, it relies on third-party vendors to provide their own integrated patient portal solutions. With these third-party patient portal solutions, there are some common recurring issues.

Centricity™ users frequently come to Bridge seeking a solution to increase patient engagement in their healthcare organizations. 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:

  • Cumbersome and inefficient patient registration and username/password reset procedures
  • Limited ability to integrate patient clinical forms into the EHR as discrete data
  • Outdated interface (HL7 interfaces instead of modern FHIR APIs)
  • Lack of scalability
  • Product gaps that require multiple third-party products
  • Desire to consolidate disparate EHR/PM environments into a single consolidated solution
  • Absent mobile app capabilities

The Bridge Patient Portal solution includes:

  • A robust API that provides a modern UI and UX.
  • A fully customizable patient portal solution with the option to add features as healthcare companies grow.
  • An entire range of fully-customizable features is available, preventing any "product gaps." (e.g., secure SMS/email/push notifications, self-scheduling, medical record access, patient-provider messaging, bill pay, patient check-in, and more.)
  • Seamless interfacing with multiple EMR/EHR software, practice management systems, billing software, apps for patient use, reporting or analytics tools, and more.

Bridge offers a vendor-neutral patient portal and patient engagement solution, which can connect with any interfaceable EHR, RCM, or PM software system, including Centricity™. In cases where Centricity™ 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 "front door" to access important self-service tools via their web browser or through a published iOS or Android mobile app.

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 tools Examples
Patient portal software EZ Access™, Medfusion™, Intelichart™
Appointment reminder software 10to8 ™, SimplyBook.me™, Solutionreach™
Patient scheduling software Odoro™, ZocDoc™
Patient intake software Phreesia™
Telemedicine software SnapMD™, Doxy.me™, Zoom ™
Patient survey software Patientlink™, Zonka™, SurveyVitals™
Patient messaging software Relatient™, Luma™
Mobile app solution FollowMyHealth®

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 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 Centricity™ 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 Centricity™ 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 Centricity™ 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 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.

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