Integrating My ACP Decisions with External Systems

Overview

Note: This document provides a conceptual overview of how the My ACP Decisions ordering system and how its API could be integrated with an external system. This is not a formal API specification document nor does it provide details on API calls or responses.

How does My ACP Decisions share content with patients?

Clinicians choose which videos or documents they would like to order for their patient. When confirmed, an order is created which generates a unique internal identifier along with a code that can be shared with the patient.

Does My ACP Decisions collect PHI?

No PHI is collected at any point in the process. My ACP Decisions shares and tracks all content using an anonymized alphanumeric code. Administrators may enter employee names and email addresses into My ACP Decisions, but are not required to do so.

How would order information be linked to an EHR?

It would depend on the EHR and integration method, including JSON, HL7, and HL7 FHIR, and other requirements and would not limited be limited to workflow and applications to view orders.  

Why would I want to integrate with an EHR/EMR system?

Without integration, clinicians need to sign in to the My ACP Decisions web or mobile app to view the details of an order. Integrating and displaying order details in your EHR/EMR eliminates these steps for the clinician and can provide more context around the patient interaction by incorporating PII/PHI.

What information does each order provide?

When getting the details for an order, the following information is provided in JSON format:

  • List of redemption code(s), their purposes and when they were last used;
  • The list of content shared by the clinician; &
  • Whether or not each video or document has been watched.

What tasks does the API support?

  • Listing content available for ordering;
  • Creating an order;
  • Listing existing orders;
  • Adding additional redemption codes to an existing order; &
  • Redeeming a code and viewing its resources.

How should I display the ACP Decisions library in my EHR?

We strongly recommend that our content library is organized in a way that makes it easily understood and discoverable.

The ACP Decisions video library has approximately 500 videos for patients and their families spanning 20+ languages. Finding the right resource for a patient is extremely difficult if clinicians have to scroll through a list of this size. We organize each video by category, disease, clinical setting, and language. Providing adequate user interface to filter this content appropriately is essential to efficient clinical workflows.

What is the simplest way to display the library to users?

Collections provide a concise way for working with language versions (e.g English, Spanish, Arabic) and editions (e.g. Part 1, Part 2, Condensed, Extended) for a given video concept.

Individual Videos or Documents look like this:
  • Goals of Care: General Overview in English
  • Goals of Care: General Overview in Spanish
  • Goals of Care: General Overview in German
Collections simplify this approach by grouping this content:
  • Goals of Care: General Overview
    • English
    • Spanish
    • German
  • CPR: General Overview
    • English
    • Spanish
    • German

What are the steps my development team would need to take to integrate My ACP Decisions ordering and redemption code functionality in an EHR system (e.g. within EPIC or AllScripts)?

If you plan on providing a custom integration and would like to generate orders with patient codes from your own EHR, you must do the following:

  1. Provide an interface to assemble an order of one or more resources within your EHR interface (e.g. shopping cart, drop down lists, or similar);
  2. Provide the ability for a user to submit content to confirm an order (e.g "Confirm Order Button in a Cart");
  3. Display the confirmation code returned from the API (e.g. confirmation screen, printed directions, or similar); &
  4. Retain the order number in your EHR record for later reference (e.g. link order #1234567 for the patient record "Jane Doe").

Do you have an example of an integration?

Yes! We use our API in our own internal products. Our web, iOS, and Android apps all use API described above to deliver a "shopping cart" style workflow for building orders.

  • Clinicians add the resources they would like to share which is displayed like a shopping cart;
  • Clinicians then "check out" by confirming the order; and 
  • If confirmed successfully, a confirmation screen showing the order number and redemption code returned by the API along with any directions.

Depending on your internal workflows and the capabilities of your EHR system, you may take a different approach, but we have found this "shopping cart" workflow efficent and familiar for clinicians.

Are there any limitations to sharing content when creating orders?

There is no limit on the number of orders you can create, but some resources are designed for providers and not patients. If you attempt to create an order with one of these resources, the confirmation will fail with an error message telling you which resource was in error.

To guard against this, each resource has information on whether or not it should be shared with patients.