Waller Creek Software is an Austin custom software company, and you work directly with co-founders Taylor Moses and Jamison Dyal. Our healthcare systems are fully HIPAA compliant, we sign BAAs and any other compliance agreements you need, and a HIPAA-trained team member is part of each build. We connect where the vendor's APIs or integration options allow, and we tell you plainly when they do not. The five questions below are the ones we ask on every EHR integration.
Question one: which way does the data need to move?
Start with direction. Reading data out of the EHR, such as appointments or demographics for a dashboard, is the simplest case. Writing data back, such as intake answers, documents or results from another system, carries more weight because it changes the medical record. Two way sync is the hardest, because both systems can change the same fact and someone has to decide which one wins.
We write each flow down in plain language: what data, from where, to where, how often and who reviews it. That one page becomes the agreement your clinical, billing and IT people sign off on before Build begins, and it stays useful long after launch.
- Read only: schedules, demographics, encounter lists
- Write back: intake data, documents, outside results
- Two way: records both systems are allowed to update
- Event driven: one system acts when something happens in another
Question two: what does your EHR vendor actually allow?
Every EHR exposes data differently. Some offer FHIR APIs, some rely on HL7 messages through an interface engine, some provide scheduled file exports, and some require a vendor approval process before any third party can connect. The right method for EHR integration in Austin depends on your vendor, your contract and sometimes how your system is hosted.
We review the documentation and, where needed, work with you through the vendor's request process. If a connection your workflow needs is not available, we say so early and design an alternative, such as a staff review queue or a structured export, instead of promising something the vendor will not support.
- 1 Event in one system
- 2 Validate and map
- 3 Send to the EHR
- 4 Confirm
- 5 Log and monitor
Question three: how will records find each other?
Two systems rarely agree on who a patient is. Names get spelled differently, a date of birth gets mistyped, a patient changes insurance or moves. Matching rules decide whether a record from another tool belongs to an existing chart, and a careless rule can attach information to the wrong person.
We take a conservative approach: automatic matches only when identifiers clearly agree, and a human review queue for anything uncertain. Every match and every override is logged, so you can trace exactly how a record got where it is and who approved it.
Mapping deserves the same care. One system may record race, language or visit type with different codes than the other, and a quiet mismatch can skew reports for months. We build a mapping table your staff can read, review it with the people who know the data best, and flag any value that arrives without a match instead of guessing.
✕Staff copy data between the EHR and other tools
✓Defined flows move data where the vendor allows
✕Assumptions about vendor access found mid-project
✓Vendor options reviewed before Build begins
✕Uncertain patient matches attached automatically
✓Uncertain matches routed to a human review queue
✕First tests run against live patient charts
✓Testing in sandboxes with realistic fake data
✕Broken interfaces noticed when staff complain
✓Monitoring and alerts when messages stop or fail
Question four: how will you test without touching real charts?
An EHR integration should never be tested for the first time on live patient records. We build against vendor sandboxes or test environments where they exist, use realistic fake data, and walk your staff through test scenarios during Build so they can see the results inside their own workflow.
We also test the awkward cases on purpose: a patient with two charts, a name with an apostrophe, an appointment cancelled and rebooked in the same hour, a message that arrives twice. Those are the situations that break connections in real clinics, so we would rather find them in a sandbox than on a busy Tuesday.
Before launch, we agree on a short list of checks your team runs on the first day live, plus a rollback plan if anything looks wrong. Launch day should feel uneventful, and that is the goal.
Question five: what happens when something changes?
Vendors upgrade, fields get renamed, a practice adds a location or a new visit type. Connections that nobody watches tend to fail quietly. We add monitoring that alerts the right person when messages stop flowing or start failing, and a log that shows each transaction, its status and any error in plain terms.
Our EHR integration work in Austin includes a plan for vendor upgrades, so an update on the EHR side becomes a scheduled task rather than a Monday morning surprise for your front desk.
The system handles
- Moving approved data between systems
- Retrying failed exchanges
- Alerting on errors
Your people decide
- Approving data rules
- Resolving mismatches
- Vendor coordination
Security that follows the data
Data moving between systems is protected health information the whole way. We encrypt it in transit and at rest, limit each connection to the minimum data it needs, use role-based access for anyone who can view logs, and require multi-factor authentication for administrative access. The audit trail records what moved, when and why.
For teams with stricter requirements, we have built advanced audit trails and full systems for FDA-regulated work under 21 CFR Part 11. That experience shapes how we handle every clinical record, regulated or not.
The same discipline for manufacturing and sales systems
Swap the EHR for an ERP or a CRM and the questions stay the same. A manufacturer connecting quality records to a customer portal and a sales team pushing signed contracts into billing both need clear direction, matching rules, safe testing and monitoring. We have delivered 20+ custom systems across 9+ industries, and that pattern sits behind each connection.
If your project spans both worlds, such as a clinic that also runs a sales team for its services, we can plan both sides together so the data agrees everywhere it appears.
