Infection prevention teams spend a surprising share of their week copying data. Admissions go from one screen to a spreadsheet, culture results from the lab report to a line list, and antibiotic orders from the pharmacy system to a stewardship log. Every hour spent re-keying is an hour not spent on the ward. Every transcription is a chance for error.
Integrating infection control and antimicrobial stewardship software with the hospital's electronic health record (EHR) or HMIS removes that work. This guide explains what data an IPC and stewardship platform needs, the standards that carry it, and how integration typically works with the three platforms that run many of the world's largest hospitals: Epic, Oracle Health (Cerner) and InterSystems.
What data infection control software needs from the EHR
- Patient movement (ADT): admissions, transfers and discharges. These place each patient in the right unit and bed, which matters for exposure tracing, outbreak detection and patient-day denominators.
- Microbiology results: specimen, organism and antimicrobial susceptibility. This is the most important feed for MDRO alerts, HAI case finding and antibiograms.
- Other laboratory results: white cell count, CRP, procalcitonin and similar markers that support HAI and sepsis rules.
- Vital signs and observations: temperature, heart rate, blood pressure and ventilator settings, used in surveillance definitions such as ventilator-associated events.
- Medication orders and administrations: antimicrobial prescriptions, doses and administration times, for stewardship reviews and DDD and DOT metrics.
- Devices and procedures: central lines, urinary catheters, ventilation and surgical procedures, for device days and surgical site infection surveillance.
The standards that carry the data
HL7 version 2
HL7 v2 messaging is still the workhorse of hospital integration. Typical feeds include ADT messages for patient movement, ORU messages for laboratory and microbiology results, and pharmacy order and administration messages. They are usually routed through the hospital's interface engine in near real time.
HL7 FHIR
FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) exposes the same information through modern web APIs. Resources relevant to IPC and stewardship include Patient, Encounter, Observation, DiagnosticReport, Specimen, MedicationRequest, MedicationAdministration, Procedure and Device. SMART on FHIR also lets approved applications launch inside the EHR with the clinician's context.
Terminology
Standards only help if the codes line up. Integration usually involves mapping local codes to LOINC for tests, SNOMED CT for organisms and specimens, and the WHO ATC classification for antimicrobials, which is also needed for DDD calculations.
Working with the major EHR and HMIS platforms
Epic
Epic supports HL7 v2 interfaces and publishes FHIR APIs through its developer resources at open.epic. In practice, integration is arranged with the hospital's own Epic and integration teams, who decide which feeds and APIs are enabled for a third-party application.
Oracle Health (Cerner)
Oracle Health's Millennium platform supports HL7 v2 interfaces and FHIR R4 APIs. Hospitals typically route ADT, results and pharmacy feeds through their existing interface engine to the IPC platform.
InterSystems
InterSystems TrakCare is a unified hospital information system used widely in Asia, the Middle East and Europe. InterSystems' interoperability products, such as HealthShare and IRIS for Health, support both HL7 v2 and FHIR, which makes them a common route for feeding departmental systems.
Many hospitals also run regional HMIS or separate laboratory information systems (LIS). The same standards and checklist apply.
An integration checklist
- Start with use cases, not interfaces. For example, "alert the IPC nurse within an hour of a new carbapenem-resistant isolate", or "calculate DOT by unit every month without manual work". Each use case defines the data you need.
- Inventory what exists. Many hospitals already have ADT and results feeds that can be subscribed to, without building new interfaces.
- Choose the pattern. Real-time HL7 v2 feeds through the interface engine, FHIR API calls, scheduled bulk extracts, or a mix of these.
- Map terminology early. Organism names, antibiotic codes and ward locations cause most integration delays.
- Validate before go-live. Run the integrated system in parallel with current processes, compare case counts and check individual patients end to end.
- Secure and govern the data. Use role-based access, audit logs, encryption in transit and at rest, and compliance with local data protection law. Examples include India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023, the GDPR in Europe and HIPAA in the United States.
- Monitor after go-live. Interface errors are inevitable. Make sure failed or delayed messages raise an alert before they become a gap in surveillance.
Common pitfalls
- Free-text organism names that do not map cleanly to a standard code.
- Ward and bed codes that change after renovations or reorganisations.
- Duplicate patient records splitting one patient's history.
- Using antibiotic orders where stewardship metrics need administrations.
- Treating integration as an IT project instead of a clinical one. The IPC team must own the validation.
Why hospitals choose Ibhar
Ibhar adds infection prevention, stewardship and AMR intelligence to the systems hospitals already run, without replacing them. Ibhar is the infection intelligence platform for infection prevention and control (IPC), antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Hospitals from India to the Middle East use it, and it works alongside Epic, Oracle Health (Cerner) and InterSystems.
- 800+ hospitals with Ibhar implementation experience.
- Peer-reviewed research in the American Journal of Infection Control and the Indian Journal of Medical Microbiology.
- Recognised by the Health Innovation Exchange at the United Nations General Assembly.
To see what Ibhar could do for your hospital, talk to our team.
Frequently asked questions
Can infection control software integrate with Epic?
Yes. Epic supports standard interfaces and APIs, and third-party integrations are arranged with the hospital's own Epic team. Ibhar works alongside Epic, Oracle Health (Cerner) and InterSystems.
Do we need to replace our EHR to add infection control and stewardship software?
No. A specialist platform should add IPC, stewardship and AMR capabilities to the systems you already run.
What data does infection control software need from the EHR?
Typically patient movement, microbiology and laboratory results, clinical observations, antimicrobial orders and administrations, and device and procedure data.
Epic is a trademark of Epic Systems Corporation. Oracle Health and Cerner are trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. InterSystems, TrakCare, HealthShare and IRIS for Health are trademarks of InterSystems Corporation. Product names are used only to describe compatibility.