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Better Navigation through the Patient Data Maze

12 December 2025
Blog
3.5 minute read

eClinicalWorks

A yellow arrow going through a maze, representing a maze of patient data information pointing to PRISMANet, eClinicalWorks' Qualified Health Information Network

It’s not as romantic as hunting for the Fountain of Youth or searching for El Dorado, but universal interoperability of healthcare records sometimes seems as elusive as either of those famous quests.

The theory is simple enough: Any doctor at any practice should be able to access a patient’s records electronically from any source connected to a nationwide framework. The reality is far more complicated: Despite years of initiatives by government agencies and private healthcare IT providers, doctors can often access only partial, incomplete records. Not all providers participate. Not all vendors make it easy for their records to be shared and seen.

Welcome to PRISMANet — the eClinicalWorks QHIN

eClinicalWorks is doing our part to change that for the better. Our Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN), known as PRISMANet, is one of eight federally approved QHINs that medical practices can use to access patient records from external sources.

And eClinicalWorks is coordinating with the recently announced CMS Digital Health Tech Ecosystem, an initiative to promote seamless healthcare data sharing and new industry interoperability standards.

The federal initiative, launched in July, aims to turn years of rhetoric and promises into reality by encouraging healthcare IT providers to fulfill the technological promise of making patient records easily and universally available, regardless of where those records reside and regardless of which Electronic Health Record a physician requesting those records might be using.

Case in Point: Advocare

Consider the case of Advocare, one of the nation’s largest independent, physician-owned medical networks, with about 200 locations and 600+ providers in Eastern Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey, and Delaware.

In July 2019, Advocare undertook a “big bang” implementation that saw every practice location switch to the eClinicalWorks EHR in just one day. That massive effort marked a huge step forward for the large, multi-specialty practice, improving the efficiency and coordination of medical care and making more patient records available than ever before.

But physicians at Advocare, like practices across the country, still faced some obstacles.

Comprehensive patient care depends on access to complete medical histories — yet many practices still face gaps when trying to view hospital records or external data. It might be a handful of sources or a particular system. Sometimes the software simply doesn’t communicate as well as it should.

Improving Connections with Two Hospitals

“Our challenge had been that from two of the largest hospitals we worked with, we were getting virtually no medical records,” said Edward Maule, chief information officer and chief information security officer at Advocare. ” I was getting complaints from my doctors that they weren’t getting all the medical records that they needed. Literally hundreds or thousands of patients were being seen at those hospitals. Obviously, this was very problematic and made it very difficult to treat those patients.”

Fortunately for Advocare, eClinicalWorks was ready with a solution.

“I did reach out to eCW and said how can we be better?” Maule said. “And they alerted us to a new process they’re working on called PRISMANet, which allowed them to stand up their own QHIN and asked would I like to be an early adopter?”

Leading-Edge Technology Means Fast Results

Maule completed a short application process, signed a contract, and Advocare was quickly connected to PRISMANet. In just one day, Advocare’s physicians gained access to complete, longitudinal patient records.

“The next day my phone started to ring,” Maule said. “The doctors were so happy. They wanted to throw me a parade, because all of a sudden all these medical records were now available, and it was life-changing for them. In fact, it was so much information that some of our HIPAA doctors that are more in the know said this is almost too much information!”

To be sure, too much information is a much better situation than too little, but even there eClinicalWorks can help. PRISMA AI leverages artificial intelligence to help physicians sort and make sense of the vast amounts of patient data that are delivered through the QHIN. With PRISMA AI in place, providers can enjoy summaries of patient cases, search for the most relevant clinical information quickly, and more efficiently develop treatment plans.

Maule’s advice to other organizations?

“If you’re not enrolled in PRISMANet, get enrolled,” he said. “There’s no downside, there’s no cost. And there are night-and-day differences in the amount of records that you’re going to get.”

Whether you are an eClinicalWorks customer or use a different EHR, you can click here for more information about the PRISMANet QHIN and how to get involved.