User Guide — Interfaces — athenaExchange

The simplest type of interface involves the sharing of patient demographic and scheduling data from athenaOne with an external system. (EMR stands for electronic medical record.) Standard requirements are that patient adds and updates, as well as appointment adds and cancels in athenaOne trigger interface messages to the external system. Check-in interface messages are also commonly included. In all cases, athenaOne is the master of data for this type of interface, so the sharing of data is one-way (outbound from athenaOne).

athenahealth currently supports the following Lab/EMR Lite interfaces:

• LabCorp
• Quest
• Sunrise Labs
• OTN
• Dictaphone
• LabTrak
• RxNT
• digiChart

The demographic and appointment data shared by athenaOne is used by the external system to generate charges; these charges are then transferred to athenaOne. This interface is an extension of the Lab/EMR Lite class of interface.

In addition to the application events for the previous two interfaces, some action in the external system also causes charges to be sent to athenaOne; these charges are processed in real time, and claims are created. Mobile/MedAptus, interfaces with Logician, and interfaces with most EMR applications that generate charges are examples of this type of interface. For this type of interface, athenaOne is the master of the demographic data and scheduling data.

The remote system transfers patient demographic data to athenaOne. (ADT stands for admission-discharge-transfer.) This is generally the most complicated of all the standard interfaces: inbound demographic interfaces warrant an entire paper on the subject.

In this type of interface, athenaOne is configured to accept demographic data from an external system, usually a hospital patient index; patients created or transferred from the external system (e.g., when the patients are created or seen) are automatically created in athenaOne, in real time, subject to interface-specific constraints.

Interfaces of this type can be fairly straightforward when the data exchanged are purely core demographic type data (e.g., patient name, address, etc.). Sharing insurance data complicates the interface significantly.  

athenahealth currently supports the following Hospital ADT interfaces:

• Meditech
• MS4
• HBOC
• Star
• Invision
• Pathlab

There are also a number of completely customized, unique interfaces, including a highly complicated, multi-master patient interface with EAD, and various custom eligibility interfaces. (EAD stands for Enterprise Access Directory, a Siemens product.) Pricing for these interfaces is also custom.  

athenahealth currently supports the following custom interfaces:

• EAD interface at KU/Jayhawk
• EAD NPP interface at KU/Jayhawk

Over the course of each interface implementation, athenahealth spends a significant amount of time working with the lab/facility to meet its testing requirements. Therefore, your electronic results should reflect what you would have typically received via fax. On the first day that your interface is live, you may continue to receive faxed results. You should follow up with your lab to make sure that they have turned off your faxed results, to reduce duplicate results being received.

Unlike the faxed copies of lab results, athenaOne creates a separate document for each test performed and completes the analytes for lab results.

When athenaOne receives an interface result, it routes the result to your practice based on default/task assignment override rules. Most labs provide athenaOne with a unique identifier in the message to help us route results to the correct department. If the facility is unable to provide us with a department identifier, athenaOne routes your results based on the providers listed in the message.

If athenaOne receives results for your practice for unlisted providers, we map the result documents to the STAFF row in your Clinical inbox. If you have providers who work out of multiple departments, you must let athenahealth know which department that provider uses as a primary location. If you believe that one of these mappings is incorrect, please contact the CSC by selecting Support > Create Case or Call in the Main Menu.

Note: athenaOne can route a result for an account number or provider to only one department.

When athenaOne receives results via your interface, it attempts to automatically map them to an order that you placed in athenaClinicals. If athenaOne can find a matching order for the correct patient in your practice, it ties the results to that order. If the result returned by the performing facility does not match the original order, athenaOne cannot automatically tie results to the order.

For example, if a provider ordered a URINALYSIS COMPLETE but received results for a URINE CULTURE, those results would not be tied to the order. You can still manually tie the results to the order if you believe the lab performed the correct test.

Note: If you are concerned that a result order type that you received for a particular order is incorrect, please check that you ordered the right test. If you ordered a bolded test and you still believe that the test results are different than what you ordered, please contact the CSC by selecting Support > Create Case or Call in the Main Menu.

Interface results are generated in real time and appear in the patient's chart as soon as the lab sends them. You no longer need to wait for the lab to fax your lab results or for athenahealth to process and route those faxes.

If an order is created and submitted to an interface that is currently down, the order will then drop to paper. The order will no longer be submitted by interface, and therefore, the results will not be received via interface. When notified of an interface being down, the order would need to be re-created if desired submission is by interface.