Mirth Connect Epic to Cerner EHR Systems: A Step-by-Step Guide for Seamless Data Transfer

Introduction

Often healthcare organizations face challenges when transferring clinical data from one EHR system to another. The migration from Epic to Cerner data is widespread with organizational changes like the merger, joint care projects and pursuit for more data analysis in the healthcare sector. Its complex structures and stiff nature of regulations under HIPAA pose a serious challenge in this process.

Fortunately for us, there are solutions such as Mirth Connect that provide strong healthcare interoperability solutions. It establishes interlinkage between disparate EMR systems with its vast interoperability benefits. Using Mirth Connect’s customized open-source approach, healthcare organizations can simply enable secure and efficient data transfer between the Epic and Cerner systems.

We’ll guide you through a straightforward, step-by-step approach to set up Mirth Connect for Epic to Cerner interoperability, based on experiences in doing it on the ground. Let’s dive in.

What is Mirth Connect?

Mirth Connect (now known as NextGen Connect) is an open-source platform for healthcare data systems integration that specifically functions as an interface engine that connects Epic and Cerner systems. The platform is oriented toward message exchange and migration across healthcare systems, receiving HL7, which is the standard language for electronic data interchange solutions  in the medical world.

As a middleware solution, Mirth Connect excels at:

• Receiving messages from source systems like Epic
• Transforming data formats to match destination requirements
• Routing clinical information securely to target systems like Cerner
• Providing comprehensive logging and monitoring capabilities

It is especially suitable for HL7 integration solutions between major EHR platforms.

Why Integrate Epic and Cerner?

In most cases, Epic and Cerner need to be merged to cater for the existing operational needs:

• Hospital System Mergers: When healthcare systems combine operations but maintain separate EHR systems
• Collaborative Care Networks: For sharing patient information across affiliated organizations
• Analytics and Population Health: Consolidating clinical data for comprehensive analysis
• Laboratory and Diagnostic Systems: Ensuring test results flow seamlessly between systems
• Patient Record Portability: Maintaining continuity of care as patients move between facilities

With all the advantages, integrating these platforms has its own drawbacks such as unreliable data standard, lack of communication uniformity and exhaustive rules for HIPAA compliant software development.

Step-by Step Guide on Migrating Data

Step 1: Assess Data Requirements

To successfully deploy Mirth connect data integration project, you must first specify that:

• Which clinical data elements need to be transferred (e.g., patient demographics, medications, lab results, procedures)
• Source formats from Epic (usually FHIR resources or HL7 v2.x messages)
• Target formats acceptable by Cerner (often HL7 v2.x or Cerner’s proprietary APIs)
• Volume and frequency of data exchange

For one of our clients, we had to access critical FHIR resources from Epic, such as Patient, Medication, Encounter, Observation, Procedure, and Diagnostic Report data.

Step 2: Set Up Access in Epic and Cerner

For successful Epic EHR data exchange, the following will be necessary:

• Access to Epic’s Clarity database for batch extraction or Epic’s APIs for real-time integration
• Appropriate authentication credentials for both systems
• Network connectivity between environments, often via secure VPN
• Endpoint configurations in Cerner to receive the incoming data (either via SFTP for batch uploads or APIs for real-time integration)

Step 3: Plan Your Integration Strategy

Design your clinical data migration strategy using Mirth and list the following components:

• Data flow direction (in this case, one-way from Epic to Cerner)
• Transformation rules to normalize data between systems
• Security measures including PHI masking and tokenization
• Error handling protocols and logging requirements

Make sure your plan has a secure staging area to handle data transformations before it will be imported into Cerner.

Step 4: Install and Launch Mirth Connect

To start with the Mirth Connect tutorial for healthcare implementation:

• Download Mirth Connect from the NextGen official site
• Install on a secure server with appropriate network access to both Epic and Cerner environments
• Configure basic settings including database connections and logging preferences
• Log in to the Mirth Administrator dashboard to begin channel configuration

For large scale deployments, Docker can be used to containerize Mirth Connect and thus improve manageability and scalability.

Step 5: Create a New Channel

Mirth operates using “channels,” which define a particular data flow:

• Create a new channel named descriptively (e.g., “Epic_Clarity_to_Cerner_Patient”)
• Configure the channel to handle the appropriate data type (FHIR JSON, HL7 v2.x, etc.)
• Set processing and queuing options based on volume expectations

In case of integration from epic to Cerner for HL7, there may be a need for separate channels for different types of data.

Step 6: Configure Source Connector (Epic)

For extracting data from Epic:

• Configure SQL queries to extract data from Epic’s Clarity database
• Set up appropriate scheduling for batch extraction
• Implement parameterized queries to capture only changed or new data
• Configure comprehensive logging for audit purposes

In our case, we used scheduled SQL queries governed by Mirth Connect for the extraction of important FHIR resources.

Step 7: Configure Destination Connector (Cerner)

A crucial intermediate step in every Mirth Connect Epic to Cerner installation:

1. Create a staging database (PostgreSQL was used in our case)

2. Implement transformation logic to standardize:

• Date/time formats between systems
• Code mappings (e.g., LOINC, SNOMED)
• Field alignments to match Cerner schema requirements

3. Implement tokenization and PHI masking for sensitive fields like SSNs and MRNs

4. Flatten nested JSON structures if pulling FHIR resources

5. With this transformation layer, the data from Epic is securely processed and well utilized in Cerner.

Step 8: Test with Sample Data

For loading data into Cerner:

1. Map every FHIR/HL7 resource to its Cerner location.

2. Configure transport method:

• Batch uploading through SFTP with HL7v2, CSV, or XML web page support.
• Real-time posting of FHIR resources using Oracle Cerner Ignite APIs, with OAuth2 for authentication and authorization.

3. Create error-handling strategies and add retry logic where appropriate.

Having comprehensive field map documentation as part of Cerner integration with Epic is critical for future diagnostic and retention of future reference.

Step 9: Monitor the Channel

Before turning on your HL7 interface between Epic and Cerner:

• Test with sample data to validate transformations
• Verify data integrity across systems
• Implement monitoring dashboards for:
  • Error tracking and alerting
  • Queue management
  • Performance metrics
  • Success/failure rates

For our client, we created custom dashboards to gain full transparency of the whole integration workflow.

Step 10: Go Live

In case of successful testing of Mirth connect data integration:

• Enable channels for production use
• Implement gradual scaling to handle full production volumes
• Establish operational procedures for ongoing maintenance
• Document the entire solution for knowledge transfer

The architecture should host multiple EHR systems and continue integrating to deliver enduring value as an integrated healthcare solutions.

Best Practices and Tips

While linking Mirth Connect with Epic to Cerner, make sure to:

• Implement SSL, encryption at rest, and role-based access controls
• Maintain audit trails for all operations
• Use containers, secure credential management, and Kubernetes orchestration where appropriate
• Keep detailed interface specifications for troubleshooting and knowledge transfer

Bottomline

Mirth Connect Epic to Cerner integration solutions delivers reliable data flow, compliance and true interoperability. This blog explains how to integrate Epic with Cerner through a systematic approach to improve data and patient care. As healthcare digitization boosts, Mirth Connect becomes an essential tool for maximizing clinical data value across systems.